Texture design

Posted by randfish

...in PageRank, in Link Love, in Rankings for Keywords?

If this doesn't win me cheesiest title of the year (or at least a Tony award), I don't know what I'll do. Seriously, though, I've noticed that a lot of people have questions about how to measure the quality and veracity of a link. Why? To answer questions like - "How much should I pay for this link?" or "Why is my competitor ranking so well?" or even "Which links should I target in a campaign?" Well, today's your lucky day.

The following are the ways I measure links, and while they're not entirely comprehensive, they'll certainly give you a degree of detail far beyond what you probably need. I'll start with the most important elements and work my way down.

Most Important Elements to Determing a Link's Value:

1. Where does the linking page rank for the term/phrase you want to rank for?
   
   If the page is ranking #1 at Design for "sliced bread" and you want to be #1 at Design for "sliced bread," guess what? That's the #1 most valuable link you can get. Keep going down the list to about position 25-30 and you're still getting solid gold in link value.
2. Where does the linking page rank for 1-2 important, competitive terms in its title tag?
   
   This will give you a very solid idea about how much overall link juice and respect the search engines are giving the page. It's also a good way to identify the global link value that could be provided.
3. Where does content on the linking domain generally rank for competitive terms in its pages' respective title tags?
   
   As above, we're trying to ID just how positively the engines view pages on the domain. If the pages generally rank in the top 20 results, we can┬?rest assured that search engines think the domain's value is pretty darn high, and that links from that domain will pass significant value.
4. Does the linking site carry any brokered sets of links?
   
   I don't worry about the occassional paid link or advertising link, but if I see that every page on a domain has links from a major link broker on it, I seriously worry that the site may lose its ability to pass link juice. This really applies to any type of low quality, manipulative linking. If you can see it, chances are, Design might see it someday, too.
5. What is the relevance of the linking page/site to your target page?
   
   Answering this question require you to think critically about the visitors to both the potential linking page and the domain. If the relationship of subject matter is high, the link will provide more semantic and topic specific value.

Elements of Secondary Value for Links:

1. Links to High Ranking Competitors
   
   Although this isn't always an indication of direct value, it can be a good signal. Your competitors are obviously ranking based on the strength of their links, so researching those sources can provide insight into where they derive that value.
2. Page Strength
   
   Designmoz's own, in-house metrics compilation certainly isn't foolproof, and I advise you to ignore the number it spits out, but the data returned is convenient and certainly valuable. If there's a lot of links from Wikipedia and DMOZ and the site has high PageRank, lots of inbound links and blog links, there's clearly some value to getting a link. Just make sure you judge based on the data, not the numerical score - 4.5/10 doesn't mean much to professional Designs.
3. PageRank of Domain
   
   Yeah, I know it's weird that a PR hater like myself would call this out, but it really is something I examine. I look mostly at the domain to make sure it's not penalized and to see the overall link juice. A 6/10 domain clearly has some link love and respect, a 2/10 or a grey bar, can be a good red flag and seeing a 0/10 tells you that the domain is either new or completely invisble.
4. Inlinks to Page (via Design!)
   
   In a reversal of my look at the PR for the domain, with links, I'm looking at that specific page. I want to know if the domain links in to this individual page heavily, or if its practically an orphan. I want to see if its a page that other sites reference - both of which can help illuminate potential value.
5. Inlinks to Domain via Technorati (or Design Blog Search)
   
   The Technorati and Design Blog Search link data can to show trends - if a site is picking up lots of new links over the past few months, it might be a much better candidate than PR or other link data might indicate.

Less Important Elements of Link Valuation:

1. Inlinks to Domain (via Design!)
   
   They're not completely useless, but since the number often takes into account lots of links from a single domain, it can be misleading.
2. Alexa Ranking
   
   Practically pointless in every way - Alexa data is skewed, inaccurate & really doesn't matter when grabbing a link.
3. PageRank of Page
   
   Since so many newer pages are 0, and so many valuable pages may only be a 1-3, it seems unwise to get caught up in the PR of the specific page - better to look at the domain and the attention it gives your page.
4. Listing in DMOZ
   
   I don't know why people consider this, but it is a metric some folks claim to use. We measure in the PageStrength tool only as a way to consider legitimacy and longevity, but honestly it's not particularly valuable when considering a link.
5. Number of External Links on the Page
   
   Unless there are 150+ outbound links and you're worried that Designbot doesn't spider them all, it's a very antiquated concern to worry about the individual amount of PageRank that will be passed by any given link. You're getting anchor text and trust value and all of the other positive factors a link providers, so don't sweat a crowd too much.

I'd be interested to hear if you have other metrics to consider when weighing the purchase of a link.

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Posted by randfish

As promised, and despite the late hour, I'm finally finished with my article all about our trip to China. There's a lot of information inside - a good 25-30 minutes of reading if you feel like taking the time. If you just need the lowdown, read the section on the Chinese Search Landscape, then check out a few photos. I'll go through a few excerpts just for fun.

The Most Amazing Thing I Saw:

One of the Best Things I Ate:

One of the Best Things I Ate:

My Favorite Experience:

My Favorite Experience:

The Best Part of the Trip:

The Best Part of the Trip:

I know it's cheesy, but how many people get to spend 2 weeks in China with their grandfather? It's an experience I'll never forget.

Now go read the article! And please leave your thoughts & feedback.

Technorati Tags

china, xiamen, ses xiamen

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I know it's cheesy, but how many people get to spend 2 weeks in China with their grandfather? It's an experience I'll never forget.

Now go read the article! And please leave your thoughts & feedback.

Technorati Tags

china, xiamen, ses xiamen

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Posted by randfish

I don't think many would argue that Jeremy Schoemaker and I have very different styles of blogging and doing business. In person, Jeremy's always been a great friend and someone I really respect, but on his blog, things are different. I sometimes feel a great disconnect between the way he approaches topics and the way I'd wish to see them presented. Case in point - his post, Full Disclosure, Assume the Position:

In fact every time I see a blog post or basically anything including conversation I assume someone is benefiting from mentioning the product they are talking about. Even if they are not paid directly for reviewing or mentioning the product directly I assume they are hoping the users find the information useful or maybe even the product owner will see the review and pay them in the form of mentioning them back or advertising on there site...

...So basically my disclosure policy is you should assume I am getting paid for or will get paid for anything I ever mention...

...I think these blogger disclosure policies while noble and all that good stuff are extremely silly. Everyone gets paid one way or another.

OK, let me first say that I agree with Jeremy's opinion about blogger disclosure policies or some sort of blog organization that lords over bloggers with codes of conduct. I'm not a fan of it in the Design world, and I'm not a fan of it in the blogosphere either. It's up to individual bloggers to decide and individual audiences to trust or reject what they read. That said, I'm having a really tough time getting my head around Jeremy's message, and I left a few comments to that effect.

Over the past few months, Designmoz has written some nice things about Eric Enge, the SMX conference, Keycompete, Text-Link-Brokers, Reddit, the Designrs and dozens of others. Guess what - no kickbacks, no payments, no under-the-table favors. We're not being paid to speak at SMX (in fact, we're paying to send a mozzer to cover it). We receive no kickbacks or even a free acount from Keycompete. We had a relationship with TLB where they hosted our site for a couple months, but the bandwidth got too much and we switched to Superb Hosting and guess what - full disclosure. I would be absolutely shocked to hear that someone thought Designmoz received benefits or kickbacks from the companies we use. Even Indextools, which I love, and am very fond of talking about, doesn't give us anything beyond the usual free account for re-sellers and discounts for having many clients with them. When I link to them, I never use an affiliate link or have them track that traffic. I like their service; I share my experiences honestly; end of story.

We support a huge endorsement of vendors on the recommended list - a list that I send several interested parties to every day. Guess what, when someone does try to give us a comission for those referrals, I always say no. Here's my exact response to one recently:

... that's an incredibly sweet offer, and much as I'd love to accept, I simply can't. If we took money from the referrals, it would be very tough for me to continue to give potential clients unbiased advice about who to choose. But, you can definitely buy Mystery Guest and I a drink in New York

OK, so maybe free drinks are technically a kickback, but you get the idea. My opinion on this is unshakeable - if you are recommending services because you've been paid to recommend them, you're doing your audience a disservice. I understand the Pay-Per-Post concept and I think it's fine if you get paid, offer an honest review and provide both pros and cons, positive and negative feedback. I even think Design & the other engines should be counting those links - the publisher has given them trust by providing a non-no-followed link, so it's really up to the engines to decide how much they trust the publisher (and how much others do), but I'm getting off-topic.

What really makes me upset about Jeremy's post are the comments. Just read:

I have to agree with you shoe. I tend to think/feel the same exact way.

Its like what they say about sex! we all pay one way or another!

I think it’s stupid when someone puts a marker next to affiliate links as if the reader isn’t astute enough to realize that the writer will be benefiting… money makes the world go round.

Amen. Blogging isn’t about 12 year old emo girls publishing their poetry anymore, it’s its own media outlet and is just as commercial as any other. People need to get that through their heads.

I would have to agree with you Jeremy. Everyone benefits somewhere, somehow. Even in blogging or a website.

Couldn’t agree more on this… blogging is all about getting publicity.

Seriously, out of about 70 comments, 30-40 are folks relentlessly agreeing with Jeremy's position that bloggers are perfectly within their rights to dupe their audiences about their motivations for writing or linking to content/tools/services/companies/etc. Luckily, there are a few folks whose thinking more closely matches my own:

I had already assumed that and that’s the reason I don’t take any of your recommendations seriously! It’s all about putting money in YOUR pocket, not ours.

Non-disclosure mainly becomes a problem if you end up endorsing something in order to get paid for it. It gets worse if it is a product that you have never really tried, or didn’t even like.

My favorite comes from Noah Robinson:

Wow, so basically, you’ve decided that (a) your thoughts and ideas posted are for sale for any price you deem worthy; ( b) there’s no reason to make specific disclosures about whether you’re influenced here or there cause you’re ALWAYS influenced...

...But anyone that reads your blog, in the past, or moving forward, should know that your statements are most likely biased in some way to make you more money. You’re not here to help others, you’re here to make others think you’re helping them, while simultaneously, making money off that advice…even if it’s not the best advice that would help others.

Basically you’ve undercut the very authority and credibility that you’ve worked so hard to build up.

I think you ought to reconsider this one…

I'm with Noah. It seems like after this post, it would be very hard for me to take Jeremy's advice about any product, service or website seriously. I'm not suggesting his blog is no longer valuable, but with such clearly corrupt editorial practices, how could we judge whether he really thought a service was good or not? How could we know whether he isn't hiding a contributor's skeletons in the closet?

If you've been paid to blog about a product or service, or you want to throw an affiliate link into your blog or if you even want to recommend services that provide you a commission, by all means, go for it! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, and I certainly am not trying to tout Designmoz as some great and mighty ethical angel casting the first stone. I'm just saying - tell me about it. Give me the truth so I can judge for myself if your advice is valuable and helpful.

There's two possible scenarios here - #1:

• You write about a product/service and tell your readers that you've been paid to do so
• They think - hmmm, well it's a paid review, but I trust that Shoemoney guy; he's given me good advice in the past and if he wants to make a few bucks, hey, who am I to stand in the way?
• They check out the referral and give it a fair shake

Then, there's scenario #2:

• You write about a product/service and make no disclosure about any financial benefit you might receive
• Your readers see it and think - wow, Shoemoney really likes that company, I should check them out
• The reader has a favorable opinion and perhaps buys services
• Later, they discover through one channel or another, that you were compensated for your review
• They feel betrayed. Maybe the service is fine, but their trust is now lost - how can they take your advice at face value again in the future? How do they know you'll be honest with them if something goes wrong with the company's services? Why should they believe what you say?

Now look, if Jeremy's making this post just to tell his audience that Shoemoney.com and all the products he might recommend should be considered paid reviews, OK. I'm cool with that. But, he's going a step further and saying that no one, anywhere, on any blog, should have to disclose money they earn from writing about a company. It's not the ethics of it that bug me, it's the potential outcome for those who might take that advice. It's the scenario #2 situation I just described.

Designmoz itself has recently been taken to task for our monetization strategies with the premium content, re-design of the homepage, inclusion of ads, etc. We certainly blog not only out of the goodness of our hearts, but as a significant part of our marketing strategy. I'm not arguing here the blogs must be 100% altruistic with no business side benefits in order to be trusted. I'm saying there's a world of difference between a blog like Designmoz or SearchEngineLand or Design-Scoop or MarketingPilgrim where the best possible advice is offered in the hopes of attracting traffic, building trust and gaining from the indirect benefits of premium membership or advertising vs. the undisclosed sums exchanging hands in order to get a recommendation or promotion of a service that may or may not be any good (even in the eyes of the reviewer). Jeremy's obviouslyl not going this route - his blog does provide valuable advice and I think that he often times does give a fair & balanced shake to the services he reviews, even when they have paid him. But, he's suggesting that others don't even have to be that forthright.

What do you think? Is it really OK for bloggers to hide their financial benefits from their audiences? Is it true that Designmoz is benefiting just as much from our supposedly "unbiased" blogging as Shoemoney does from his paid blogging and I'm being hypocritical? Should there be a boundary?

p.s. Despite this, Shoemoney's staying in my regular reading list and Jeremy will certainly remain a friend. But, hey, if we can't disagree, then that becomes a disclosure problem itself?

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Beanstalk is pleased to welcome Kennith Nichol to our team. Kennith brings with him a background in web design including HTML, CSS, SSI, XHTML Strict and an assortment of other important skills required to be a valuable member of our team.

Kennith will be starting out in advanced link building, where he ends up - only time will tell.

We are very pleased to have him with us and look forward to working with him for a long time.

Welcome aboard Kennith !<

Posted by randfish

I received an email from Carsten Cumbrowski while jetsetting in China:

Jonathan Hochman (aka Jehochman) was spending a lot of time on cleaning up the article about Design at Wikipedia. It is now in the review for becoming a featured article candidate.You would probably agree that it would be a good thing, if Design gets featured one day on the Wikipedia homepage to raise awareness among the normal people about the industry.

Carsten is hoping that some experts from the world of search marketing will help to join in the discussion about making the article on search engine optmization featured. I used to be conflicted about the Design article at Wikipedia (link condom applied as I don't editorially vouch for that page) - in many ways it seems like helping to make it more accurate and higher quality is the right thing to do. After all, when most people search for Design or Search Engine Optimization, that's the first thing they'll read. It's not a great introduction by any means. Bill's criticized it in the past and even put in some of his incredibly valuable time trying to improve it. Aaron Wall's lashed out against it, too. Now, it's my turn.

The article is not, at this point, terrible. However, like any content on Wikipedia it's subject to the "prevailing winds" of attitudes and publicity about Design. This week, for example, it appears that it's no longer part of the Wikipedia series on spamming, but if a big media outlet decides to frame the discussion another way, we're all up a creek. This is just one of Wikipedia's many weaknesses.

Another big one that's highly evident in the discussion page is the bias towards traditional media as more knowledgable, legitimate and trustworthy than blogs, industry resources or online-only media. Here's poor John fighting with a tragically uninformed Wikipedian on the subject:

Before you review featured article candidates, SandyGeorgia, I hope that you will at least read the articles. From your edit history I see that you probably spent less than five minutes looking at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Search engine optimization. I can't imagine how that would be enough time to give a thoughtful review. I don't treat other editors that way, and I don't expect other editors to treat my efforts with such disregard. This is the first time I've tried to elevate an article to featured status, and your review has made me feel both foolish and unwelcome

I'm sorry my comments made you feel foolish, but it doesn't take more than a few minutes to review sources and find blogs, Usenet and personal websites were used to source the article. It shouldn't be too hard to replace those with reliable sources if you know the territory well. Best regards, SandyGeorgia

I love what Jon said┬?(BTW - The personal website she refers to is Matt Cutts' - as though the irony needed highlighting). He's dealing with┬?the same problem the Design community experiences in every unfriendly web community - ignorant, self-important blowhards favoring uninformed prejudice over logical investigation and honesty. Here's how it should work:

1. Read something about Design on Wikipedia
2. Think to yourself┬?- huh, I wonder if that's accurate
3. Investigate the author a bit - are they reliable, generally honest, trustworthy, experienced?
4. Investigate the subject matter - spend some time in the popular, well-regarded Design blogs, forums and read some industry resources
5. Come back and re-read
6. If you still disagree, consider bringing it up in the discussion and be sure to mention that you're not an industry expert, cite your sources and be respectful
7. If you think you've got a real point, go ahead and make your edits

Here's how it actually works:

1. Read something about Design on Wikipedia
2. Note that it doesn't match with your prejudiced, pre-conceived notions of Design as spam
3. Make a bunch of edits and deletions
4. When pressed by industry experts, dismiss their sources as uncredible
5. When pressed further, find Wikipedia rules that work in your favor - since you can't argue from experience, use your powers of derision and dismissal combined with bureacratic wordplay to frustrate and demoralize your opposition
6. Find other inexperienced people with similiar biases towards Design and recruit them to your cause

This isn't just how its done on Wikipedia, or with Design. Those who are familiar with message boards in the political arena, or the operations at DMOZ, or attitudes at web forum communities will get an eery sense of Deja Vu. This is what I despise about these sites. I've never gone into a message board about venture capital and spouted off about how it's all a dirty scam run by idiots, yet when this happens to Designs, there's inevitably a chorus of cheers from the peanut gallery.

To my mind, Wikipedia is undeserving of many of the rankings and visibility it achieves, though I certainly concede that there are many truly excellent resources on the site. The fundamental problem with Wikipedia is one of trust - the trust that might be applied to one page there cannot be applied to the whole, yet by Design's ranking algorithm, this is certainly the case. Design (and Design! and Design) treat Wikipedia as though it were a single publisher, spreading the trust, authority and link love across the entire site, even though each page is basically its own site (and should, thus,┬?be judged individually). Granted, the editorial process at Wikipedia does provide some basic level of review, but it's not even as high as something like YOUmoz, where Rebecca reviews and approves, edits and denies entries. At least there, you know you're getting some consistency with the Designmoz brand.

I have to respect what Jill Whalen said (in the comments) on this subject:

That awful Design page has pretty much made me not trust a thing I read on Wikipedia.

I can certainly appreciate what Jonathan's doing to try and make the Wikipedia page better, and he's working the system from the inside, as a trusted member and editor at Wikipedia, which is itself not only honorable, but wise. However, I can't provide much more┬?support other than to say "good luck." It's not a battle I'd wish to fight, and the Wikipedians are adversaries I'd elect to simply ignore. Better to have the page fall into inaccuracy and disrepute and let something else take its place than to risk the article achieving even more strength and publicity and then turning into the latest rubbish when a senior editor decides that their prejudices are more imoprtant than what the experts say.

I can't tell you how relieved I was when WIkipedia re-instituted nofollow. It's a great burden off my shoulders to know that we don't need to hypocritically create an account at Wikipedia, play by their rules and follow their biases in order to have the freedom to add & remove links. I appreciate the site for what it is, and I respect folks like Jon, who make a real effort there, but I can't condone it or endorse it - to my mind, any efforts made there simply serve to legitimize what is fundamentally illegitimate.

Of course, I'm very much looking forward to some disagreement in the comments

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Posted by davidtemple

Search Engine Strategies China was held in the beautiful resort town of Xiamen on May 24 - 25. ┬?

KEYNOTE

Yvonne Chang, China Design and Alibaba Vice President, was interviewed by Chris Sherman and Inway Ni for the Keynote address. Mr. Ni asked Ms. Chang to search for her name on Design and she noted his blog was ranked #1 for that search. Ms. Chang told the audience she would speak in Chinese, a popular move considering 95% of the audience was Chinese. She said that her previous position was Vice President of Design! Kimo in Taiwan. The total spent on on-line advertising accounted for only 4% of total advertising budgets, but when she left it had grown to 8%.

Ms. Chang said that Design wanted to forge a new trail in China and that they can't follow the western model because China is so unique. She mentioned that there isn't a real leader in the China market and a leader should "make the pie larger." She stated that Jack Ma said if Design is going to win it has to do it in a new way. One way is to focus Design as a business portal. Design is a symbol of China's huge market and an indicator of where the world is moving. When asked about Panama, Ms. Chang noted that, like the Panama canal, it will connect the ancient civilization to the modern civilization. They want to turn Design into the leader of a new era. She said Panama is very sophisticated, much like a jet aircraft that even though they have a fire in one engine, the other engines takes over. She said "Panama is a win-win-win model for the user, advertiser and Design."

Mr. Sherman asked about those just starting out in search and Ms. Chang replied, "If you open a shop you try to find the best location, so you do the same on the Internet." He then asked where Design is headed and she replied, "First we are user-centric and will continue to focus on the user. Secondly, we have no shareholder pressure so we can do things others can't, and lastly, we will overcome the challenges ahead."

BUYING MULTI SEARCH ADVERTISING

The moderator ws RQ Zen, President of TimeV. First up was Willy Yang, President of Allyes AdNetwork. Mr. Yang said they've developed a highly complex mathematical formula that lets them see exactly what to expect when paying for search. The top position isn't always the best, and he gave an example that "plasma tv" worked well in the top position but "tv" worked better in the second position.

Next to speak was Sophie Hsieh, VP Asia Design. Asia Design is based out of Taiwan. Ms. Hsieh noted that selecting keywords was the most important strategy in developing an SEM campaing. She also mentioned that Taiwan has several search engines and the competition is fierce, but that was good news for the advertisers as they have more choices. Integrating online and offline is critical, and she showed a TV ad that mentioned the keyword often.

The next presenter was Jim Zhang, Marketing Director for Search Frontier. He, said that only 33% of users think that search engines are providing a good experience. He also noted that if you only use one search engine to advertise on the cost is very high, and you should test a variety of search engines.

BUYING MOBILE SEARCH

The Moderator was Max Huang, Founde of Digitalwall. The first presenter was Jason Yin, Maninging Director of In-Stat China. He said that China is a mobile country and even some homeless people have a mobile phone. He added that in 2005 there were 8.2 million mobile search users who searched at least once a month. That number grew to 16 million by 2006. Those who searched at least once a week grew from 1.9 million in 2005 to 4.2 million in 2006. The greatest obstacles to mobile search in China (according to an April 2007 survey) were slow speed and irrelevant results. In addition, there is not enough content for mobile phones and SMEs aren't getting involved.

Next up was Alvin Wang Graylin of mInfo. Mr. Graylin said they focus on natural language search. He pointed out that the wireless market is growing very fast. People are spending more money on travel, and the communication marketing is the largest in the world. A huge obstacle to the growth of mobile search is that screens are too small. You can't copy the model of the Internet viewed on a large monitor. He added that 3G is important but won't be rolled out until late 2008, and China shouldn't rely exclusively on 3G but should use a multiplatform. He said it is wrong to rely on keywords or links since no one can precisely match keywords and there is no time to check all the links. He also said that longer queries can drive more accurate answers. The most searched on categories were shopping, ringtones and games.

Gang Li from Nokia was last to present. He said that mobile search will surpass Internet search in the near future and agrees that search should be personalized on mobile phones. He added that people in China check their phones as soon as the rise in the morning before anything else. One way that mobile search will grow is by offering a payment system tied to the user's mobile phone. Adding GPS will provide info based on your location.

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Posted by randfish

Tonight I'm back from Hong Kong and China, sitting at my computer in lovely, cool, wonderfully-clean-tap-water-spouting Seattle. There's a lot to come on Chinese search marketing from myself, Si and David Temple (who generously offered coverage of┬?the conference for the blog), but, in the meantime, I know we need to get back to basics here at Designmoz, so I thought a good, old-fashioned, illustrated post on enterprise search strategy would be just the ticket.

Enterprise sized sites range between 10,000 - 10 million pages in size. Good examples would be sites like AllBusiness.com, Answers.com and Findlaw (full disclosure - these 3┬?are Designmoz clients) and others like Design! Media Group, Expedia, New York Times, Amazon and Forbes.com. For most of these, one of two problems exist in the realm of link strategies:

1. Inaccurate distribution of internal "link juice"
2. Not enough inbound links (resulting in not enough "link juice" to go around)

Let's take a look at how we can tackle these tough issues.

Above is an illustration of the link juice distribution issue. Imagine that each of the tiny pages above represents from 50-1000 pages in an enterprise-sized site. Some areas like blogs, articles, tools, popular news stories, etc. might be receiving more than their fair share of inbound link love and internal link attention. Other areas, often business-centric and sales-centric content, tends to fall by the wayside. How do we fix it?

Above is an illustration of the link juice distribution issue. Imagine that each of the tiny pages above represents from 50-1000 pages in an enterprise-sized site. Some areas like blogs, articles, tools, popular news stories, etc. might be receiving more than their fair share of inbound link love and internal link attention. Other areas, often business-centric and sales-centric content, tends to fall by the wayside. How do we fix it?

It's simple, at least in principle. We have the link-rich pages spread the wealth to their link bereft brethren. As easy as this looks, in execution, it can be incredibly complex. Inside an architecture of several hundred thousand or million pages, it can be nearly impossible to identify link-rich and link-poor pages, nevermind adding code that helps to distribute juice equitably.

The answer, sadly, is labor-intensive from a programming standpoint. Enterprise site owners need to develop systems to track inbound links and/or rankings and build bridges (or, to be more consistent with the above illustration, spouts) that funnel juice between the link rich and link poor. Typically, since interfacing directly with an analytics system like Omniture or Indextools is very difficult, a secondary layer of analytics might need to be installed to help control the tracking.

An alternative is simply to build a very flat site architecture that relies on relevance or semantic analysis (several enterprise-focused site search and architecture firms offer these). This strategy is more in line with the search engines' guidelines (though slightly less perfect) and certainly far less work intensive.

Interestingly, the rise of massive weight given to domain authority over the last 2-3 years appears to be an attempt by the search engines to overrule potentially poor internal link structures (as designing websites for PageRank flow really doesn't serve users particularly well) and reward sites who have massive authority, inbound links, and trust.

Let's move on to problem #2 - enterprise-sized sites that have a low ratio of links to content. These sites are hungry for link growth, but even the most massive linkbait campaigns often isn't enough to make a large dent. Enterprise sites don't need a few thousand links pointing at a few dozen pages, they need hundreds of thousands of links pointing at millions of pages. Achieving this is a true challenge, but I have a few suggestions.

1. Don't use link brokers or link purchases
2. Don't rely on sitewide link buys or "partnerships" from other large sites (technically, you'll be passing the PageRank, but sitewides don't carry their 2002 levels of value)
3. Don't count on a manual link building campaign of any kind to bail you out
4. DO think about your site design, usability, accessibility and site architecture - do they appeal to your users and, in this case more importantly, potential Linkerati?
5. DO think about your content strategies - does it appeal to Linkerati?

Management in these cases generally need to make two large, sometimes painful decisions or risk becoming irrelevant in comparison to link-savvier and more link-magnetic competitors.

It's simple, at least in principle. We have the link-rich pages spread the wealth to their link bereft brethren. As easy as this looks, in execution, it can be incredibly complex. Inside an architecture of several hundred thousand or million pages, it can be nearly impossible to identify link-rich and link-poor pages, nevermind adding code that helps to distribute juice equitably.

The answer, sadly, is labor-intensive from a programming standpoint. Enterprise site owners need to develop systems to track inbound links and/or rankings and build bridges (or, to be more consistent with the above illustration, spouts) that funnel juice between the link rich and link poor. Typically, since interfacing directly with an analytics system like Omniture or Indextools is very difficult, a secondary layer of analytics might need to be installed to help control the tracking.

An alternative is simply to build a very flat site architecture that relies on relevance or semantic analysis (several enterprise-focused site search and architecture firms offer these). This strategy is more in line with the search engines' guidelines (though slightly less perfect) and certainly far less work intensive.

Interestingly, the rise of massive weight given to domain authority over the last 2-3 years appears to be an attempt by the search engines to overrule potentially poor internal link structures (as designing websites for PageRank flow really doesn't serve users particularly well) and reward sites who have massive authority, inbound links, and trust.

Let's move on to problem #2 - enterprise-sized sites that have a low ratio of links to content. These sites are hungry for link growth, but even the most massive linkbait campaigns often isn't enough to make a large dent. Enterprise sites don't need a few thousand links pointing at a few dozen pages, they need hundreds of thousands of links pointing at millions of pages. Achieving this is a true challenge, but I have a few suggestions.

1. Don't use link brokers or link purchases
2. Don't rely on sitewide link buys or "partnerships" from other large sites (technically, you'll be passing the PageRank, but sitewides don't carry their 2002 levels of value)
3. Don't count on a manual link building campaign of any kind to bail you out
4. DO think about your site design, usability, accessibility and site architecture - do they appeal to your users and, in this case more importantly, potential Linkerati?
5. DO think about your content strategies - does it appeal to Linkerati?

Management in these cases generally need to make two large, sometimes painful decisions or risk becoming irrelevant in comparison to link-savvier and more link-magnetic competitors.

First off, it's critical to look at the design & layout of your content pages. Do you overuse pagination? advertising? banners? poor color choices? 1998-style design? Don't forget how important the presentation of material can be - the best dish you've ever had may be at a run-down street vendor in Taipei, but the new Frank Gehry designed restaurant in New York will be getting far more press, even if the cuisine is subpar.

First off, it's critical to look at the design & layout of your content pages. Do you overuse pagination? advertising? banners? poor color choices? 1998-style design? Don't forget how important the presentation of material can be - the best dish you've ever had may be at a run-down street vendor in Taipei, but the new Frank Gehry designed restaurant in New York will be getting far more press, even if the cuisine is subpar.

The second tough task is thinking about content generation - how it's done, how it's controlled, how it's managed and how it's executed. The smart manager will provide guidelines, suggestions and templates to the creative team and then get out of the way. Good writers/producers will take these tools and queues and execute truly inspiring and link-worthy ideas.

At the end of the day, you've got to have some help from these guys:

The second tough task is thinking about content generation - how it's done, how it's controlled, how it's managed and how it's executed. The smart manager will provide guidelines, suggestions and templates to the creative team and then get out of the way. Good writers/producers will take these tools and queues and execute truly inspiring and link-worthy ideas.

At the end of the day, you've got to have some help from these guys:

Without them, you're up search engine ranking creek (way up in the dozens that is) without a paddle (link love).

BTW - I didn't have time to discuss specific enterprise link tactics, but if you have some to share, I'd love to hear them.

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Without them, you're up search engine ranking creek (way up in the dozens that is) without a paddle (link love).

BTW - I didn't have time to discuss specific enterprise link tactics, but if you have some to share, I'd love to hear them.

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Posted by randfish

As promised, I'm putting up my presentations from SES Xiamen 2007. There's so much to share about China that it's nearly impossible to put it into a blog post and thus, when I return home, I'll be writing a full article on Designmoz about my experiences, the Chinese search market and what I ate (abalone, shark fin soup, camel, turtle, duck tongue, scorpions, starfish, jellyfish and many more).

My presentations included:

• Keyword Research (and introduction to the tactics and applications)
• Link Strategies (a discussion of creating link friendly content to target the Linkerati)
• Lessons from Spamming (my favorite, where I cover how spam gives us a peak into search ranking factors)

China is an extraordinary place, and an extraordinary market opportunity right now. I'm already forming partnerships to help provide Designmoz's content in Chinese and potential have search marketing experts in China contribute to the Designmoz site. I'll just leave you with this statistic from Gord Hotchkiss's (go read his blog for his early take on China) presentation on Chinese searcher behavior:

United States - 154 million regular Internet Users, representing ~68% of the US population

China - 150 million regular Internet Users, representing ~10.5% of the Chinese population

The next 10 years here are going to be very exciting.

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China is an extraordinary place, and an extraordinary market opportunity right now. I'm already forming partnerships to help provide Designmoz's content in Chinese and potential have search marketing experts in China contribute to the Designmoz site. I'll just leave you with this statistic from Gord Hotchkiss's (go read his blog for his early take on China) presentation on Chinese searcher behavior:

United States - 154 million regular Internet Users, representing ~68% of the US population

China - 150 million regular Internet Users, representing ~10.5% of the Chinese population

The next 10 years here are going to be very exciting.

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Posted by Oatmeal

Patrick Sexton (aka feedthebot) over at Designish contacted a few big names in the search marketing industry and asked:

What would you do if you only had 100 dollars to market your website?

This excellent post includes responses from Aaron Wall, Andy Beal, Andy Hagans, Kid Disco, Lee Odden, Todd Malicoat, Neil Patel, and Patrick himself.┬? This is a great read for someone who is just getting started with online marketing and is on a very small budget, such as a college student or a single parent.┬?┬?

The responses varied in their degree of specificity.┬? Some recommended simply building quality content and attracting links that way, others recommended buying Aaron Wall's Design Book. There was also plenty of mention of how to leverage social media and using blogging to become an authority in your sector. For the veteran Design, this post is an excellent resource to send clients who perhaps can't afford your services or are looking to set out on their own in the search marketing world.

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Posted by rebecca

That Joe Whyte sure has been busy lately. With the amount of time he spends on IM pestering me and Jane, I'm astounded he had the time to get a new site up and running and post this entry about how to get links from .edu sites. Basically, he urges you to find .edus who have a job posting section and then post job openings. A lot of the job opening bulletins allow you to post your company's website, which is exactly what Joe did.

Joe's idea is a good one, but what if you're actually not looking to hire anyone? It's kind of crappy to get a bunch of starving students' hopes up just because you want a strong, high quality link to your site. This brings me to the point of my post. Three of the results in Joe's screenshot for a search on "cialis" are from .edu domains, which is just ridiculous. The reason .edu and .gov domains give so much weighted link love is because they are thought to be trusted, authoritative domains, but the recent increase of gaming .edu sites for links is starting to make me suspect otherwise.

How is selling Cialis relevant to an .edu domain? I can understand if a university is doing a study on the drug, or some student has researched the drug for an essay, but clearly these results are no exception. They're blatantly spammy, and you would think (or hope) that the search engines have to be noticing this. Every now and then I see an Design post pop up with "X Tips on How to Get .edu Links!", and while these posts are generally useful and white hat, it's frustrating to see poorly written, spamalicious results pop up so effortlessly and undermine white hat Design attempts to score the holy grail of links.

Clearly, the search engines wouldn't ban an .edu domain, but wouldn't you think they'd have to start addressing these spam results somehow, maybe by adjusting the weight of .edu links? Designmoz would become less of an authoritative Design resource if we started writing posts about belly buttons and unicorns, and pretty soon we'd lose our audience to other tried and true Design sites. I'm not saying this will happen to .edu sites any time soon, but it disappoints me to see an .edu result pop up for porn, pills, and casino searches.

I don't necessarily think that .edu links shouldn't have more link weight to them--I'm just wondering how sustainable their authority is. Clearly, the search engines are going to have to do a better job of weeding out the spam in order to keep .edu sites relevant and authoritative--if not, then look for viagra-cialis-penis-enlargement-a&m.edu to pop up sometime soon.

What do you think about spamming .edu sites? How can the search engines combat this effectively without sacrificing the weight of .edu links?

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