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Motorola searches with Bing in China
12
Mar
Mar
For anyone living in China is not a secret that cell phones market is huge. Around every corner it is possible to see people with brand new cell phones, Smartphone advertisements and new models every week. Well, Microsoft noticed this.
Bing in Smartphones
Microsoft made a deal with the cell phone manufacturer Motorola to have Bing as their default Search Engine in their Smartphones. Motorola will "deploy Bing services on Motorola devices powered by Android." They will also have a widget to boost search, which means that most searches done from Motorola phones will be powered by Bing's algorithm.
Motorola says that "Search and Maps capabilities through Microsoft will initially be available in China, starting in Q1 2010, through either pre-load or over-the-air updates for (Andriod based) devices already in market."
Implications for SEO?
It depends on your audience and objectives of you website:
- Do you want people to find you trough their phones?
- Is there an interesting opportunity that comes from the mobile market?
- Do you want to be promoted on a local environment?
If you said yes to the previous questions, think of this:
- Optimize your local searches in Bing. If people are looking for "Web development company in Beijing" using Bing, what will they find? We know Bing loves keyword rich domains and URLs.
- Try to for search yourself using Bing Maps! Are you there? If not, look at which are the first results and what are they doing to rank well on Beijing and Shanghai maps?
- How does you site looks in a Smartphone? Think of getting low page load times, good JavaScript degradation and CSS style adapted for mobile phones.
More and more searches will come from phones in China, especially those for local things, so get ready to <strong>SEO for Bing</strong> and develop good websites for mobile devices!
Google's self SEO Audit
4
Mar
Mar
Google has just published a SEO Audit (Search Engine Optimization) which analyzes 100 Google product pages, and the results are not as good as expected... it seems Google is not so good at optimizing their own websites (at least, not like seo pros).
Title Tags
Title tags: "html <title>" is one of the most important part of a webpage SEO, well, only 10% of their product pages actually follow "SEO Best practices". Indeed, most of their pages contain only the product name without any keywords or relevant tagline.
Meta-description tags
About meta-description tags, 67% of them are missing. That's why some of Google products appear on search engine result pages (SERP) without any relevant information or keywords.
For example:
To be efficient on search engines result pages, it is necessary to use the right keywords on title tags and put relevant content on meta-descriptions. Without these elements, it's difficult to understand what is the aim of your pages, and in this case, what is the Google Sky service all about? ;o)
Headings
About headings, Google say that 43% of their "<h1>" tags need improvement. h1 tags are important for SEO and usability because they state what a page is about. Many Google pages use "<h3>" or custom font styling tags instead of "<h1>" !
Permanent redirections
Google's SEO audit also points out some issues in their permanent redirections and most of them are linked to the trailing slash. Indeed, some of their product pages are accessible through "www.google.com/PRODUCT1" and some others with "www.google.com/PRODUCT1/" without redirecting. So when those 2 URL are crawled by search engines, that content is indexed twice creating a duplicate content issue.
Images
The audit from Google shows that 39% of their logo images don’t link to appropriate URLs, furthermore, some of them link to nonexistent URLs (404 error pages!). Additionally, 18% of Google’s products logos don’t have an "alternative text" tag, which is required by the W3C coding standards.
Google likes SEO now !
Google seems to be more and more interested in optimizing their own products so we guess that they will fix these mistakes very soon. However, optimizing the "on page factors" (the text and content on your web pages) is not enough.
If Google decides to follow our SEO practices, they could rank on the first position for queries like "search engines" on Google.com...
That’s why I invite Google engineers and everyone who is interested in SEO to subscribe to our RSS feed and to follow our blog.
Follow that link to download the Google SEO Audit
SEO and the Golden Triangle, Split-second choice
4
Oct
Oct
For most people that work at SEO, including us (or THEM), the reason why search rankings matter is clear. We know that for many sites, the traffic from search engines is a key to success. We also know that the first search results in a query are the ones users click on; and most users do not click "Next results" in their search engine.
But explaining this to Average Joe is not nearly as compelling as you would expect (our experience says so!). Many people I know do not understand why SEO is useful for a website. How to prove that SEO is of key importance for a website? Try the "(Google's) Golden Triangle"!
The Golden Triangle (here purple) may not be news for many of you, this aspect of search users experience has been studied many times. Look, the darker areas in the picture were looked at more than the lighter ones and some areas are not even looked at.
Want some stats on users behavior? In tests 100% of the users look at the first 3 results, and only a 20% of the users will look at the 10th search result*. Moreover, after being actually looked at, the result will have a fraction of a second to convince the user that clicking it will satisfy his query. For that the site will need a very good, convincing teaser text (or snippet).
Will you have a chance? Find out now, just try checking your rankings in the right column or go to the "Ranking tool" to see your results!
The Google’s User Experience Research team offers deep information on the Golden Triangle on their blog. I thank them for the useful info!
*Check the Organic Ranking Visibility at Eyetools Google Research.
Duplicate Content: do Google really detect it?
10
Sep
Sep
Why am I wondering if Google can detect duplicate content? well, because I see many examples while online of people and websites who obviously are trying to trick the king of search engines, and who actually succeed.
Easy to copy!
Not with a very complicated infrastructure, nor by paying 10 215 people doing this and clicking there, which would be difficult for google to detect, but just by using very simple duplicate content technics (… I know, I was surprised too).
SEO Services Company Here!
An Example ? well, of course I come with an example for you, I know you would NOT believe me otherwise (I am not speaking about you mom, I know you believe me no matter what ;o)
So, here this Indian website, their technique is really simple, they target the search query or keywords “SEO Services Company” + “a place”.
For example : “SEO services company budapest” or “seo services company oxford”
They created a page for every city, or state, with the city keyword in the title and url. yes, only the city name was different, not the rest of the text of the page, which means that on this website, 99% of the words in each page are … the same. On each page, there are internal links to the other pages, with the name of the city in the achor text like on the picture here under :
Google says no: but obviously "YES YOU CAN"
Still, Google doesn’t ban them. Actually it’s even worse (or better, depending on the point of view ;o), but they are ranking 1st on some of these cities! How come google doesn’t detect the trick while the pages are mearly copies ? I don’t know. I think it’s not that hard to compare the text of each page and see if 99% of the words are the same, or is it?
Black hat SEO is Risky SEO
I am not advising you to use this technique OF COURSE, that’s black hat SEO, and that annoys Google (and the people using it), because when you put “SEO Services company” with the name of a city, that clearly means that you want the company to be in that city, not in India (although India is beautiful). The day Google will be able to detect this fraud… the website is going down, deep down, and that would be a risk for your online business.
Google and Duplicate Content detection and NoFollow
It reminds me that everyone was thinking that google was taking the nofollow tag into account, until google (actually, matt cutts) said it didn’t. Isn’t it the same with duplicate content? Can they detect it?
Check the Rankings
You can check the rankings of this website I am talking about here under, In many cases, the website is ranking number one (and you can check your own rankings in google and baidu using our tool here). Also, let me know what you think about it, please use comments below to start the discussion:
impressive isn't it? well, still, don't follow this example... by the way "hhh" was just a test of mine that i forgot on the picture ;o)
National vs International Domain Name Extension and SEO
7
Sep
Sep
We did a few tests about the differences between national and international domain extensions regarding SEO, and the rankings of these websites in national search engines like google china baidu or bing. (check your rankings in google and baidu here)
What is a Domain name Extension?
- International domain name extensions like : .Com, .Net , .Org or .Pro
- National domain name extensions like: .de (Germany), .fr (France), .cn (China)
What was the Test ?
We launched several websites, with the same domain name, but with different domain name extensions (some national domain name extensions and some international). We let the search engines crawle them and index them, and then we test their rankings.
Results
It appears clearly that the national domain extensions has a very strong impact on the rankings of websites in the designated country.
Actually, the National Domain Name Extension is more important than :
- The language used on the website
- The IP location of the hosting
For example, we did the test with the Chinese national domain name extension which is .CN, but the website was hosted in a European country, and the language of the website was English.
Still, the website was ranking better in google.CN (China) than in google.Com (language of the website) or google.DE (the hosting country). Why was it ranking better in google china? Well, the only link between these websites and China was the national domain name extension, and obviously, it’s weight on the rankings was considerable.
Conclusions
National domain name extensions are very very important to your SEO and your Rankings. (but still, you might chose an international domain name extension because of your branding strategy, etc. SEO is something you must consider, but not something that should replace ALL of your former marketing tools)
Our ranking study also showed that the “country” of your backlinks are also very important for your rankings in that country. To make it clear : if you have a website in the USA, but the majority of your backlinks are coming from England, your website is going to rank higher in Google England.
So remember, post the backlinks in the country you target (not only the language you target).
Google is Google, not by Chance:
Google is the smartest. On bing and baidu, we reached directly very high positions because of the domain names we’ve chosen and the domain names extensions, and we shouldn’t have. We had only 2 pages on the websites, a very young age for the domain names, and very few backlinks.
That’s also no surprise as we have seen in the comparison between google and bing : “weight of keywords in urls on your rankings”
Google seemed to have a more wise approach and more balanced algorithm, which makes the search “safer” and with better quality.
China SEO and Web Development Job
26
Aug
Aug
THEM Beijing Web Design and SEO is Growing, and we have Open positions. Send your RESUME/CV to this email : jobs(at)them.pro
Keywords: SEO, SEM, Search Engine, Social Media, Drupal, Php
- Designation: SEO / SEM / Development professional
- Location: Beijing Baiziwan Lu (Pingod or Pinguoshiqu)
Compensation: to be discussed
- Education:
UG - B.Sc - Any Specialization, Computers,B.Tech/B.E. - Any Specialization,BCA - Computers,Other Graduate - Any Specialization
PG - Post Graduation
- Industry Type: IT-Software/ Software Services
Functional Area: E-Commerce, Drupal, PHP, Internet Technologies
Job Description:
We are looking for interested computer science professionals who have some SEO/SEM or Drupal exposure to join us. You will be collaborating on several search engine optimization and web development projects.
Desired Candidate Profile:
- Computer Science Background
- fluent English or French, Chinese a Plus.
- You program in PHP / HTML / CSS / Ajax / Mysql.
Company Profile:
THEM is a Web development company specializing in creating high traffic and search engine friendly sites/e-business. We focus on Drupal and Search Engine Optimization to build powerful websites for our clients.
Send your RESUME/CV to this email : jobs(at)them.pro
Optimization on Bing: all you need to know
21
Aug
Aug
Since the launching of Bing last June, you need to have some information on optimizing your website for Microsoft's search engine.
Meta: Title
- Put the most important words at the beginning, because they have more weight in the algorithm (factor of prominence).
- Try to limit to 65 characters (and use at least 5 characters).
- For deep pages, put the most strategic words first, then the description words of the category page, and only at the end, the name of the website.
- Make sure you don't have two similar titles.
- Avoid using any of these special characters: ' " < > { } [ ] ( )
Meta: description
Although they are not used in the ranking algorithm, it can be used by Bing to display the snippet (small description of each result). Here are some tips:
- Create specific descriptions for each page (especially do not repeat the same description on multiple pages).
- Don't use the same words as in the meta:title. Try to write a "commercial" description to make the visitor click on your website.
- Try to use between 25 and 150 characters.
- Avoid using any of these special characters: ' " < > { } [ ] ( )
Meta: keywords
Do not expect much from this meta to improve your ranking ... But according to Bing, it is worth having it, then fill it if it can be done automatically by your CMS (and if it does not bother you to show your competitors what the most strategic keywords on your page are ...).
- Separate your keywords with comma.
- Do not exceed 874 characters in total (don't ask me where that number comes from, it is adviced by Bing!)
- Don't repeat more than 4 times the same word
Read also:
Bing and Google SEO comparison on Keywords
19
Jun
Jun
Bing gives a lot more weight to keywords in urls than google.
How do I know that
I tested it!Actually, I was comparing bing and google with this simple yet efficient tool, and this is how I got the first impression that bing answers were containing more often the keyword in the website url than on google.
So here’s the test I did
I searched for 50 random (almost) keywords, and I took for each query the first 50 responses of bing and the first 50 responses of google. Which means I checked :
50(keywords) x 50(responses) x 2 (search engines : google and bing) = 5000 links
Don’t worry, I wrote a script for that ;o)
Then I checked if the keyword was (or wasn’t) in the URL of the websites.
Example : I search for the keyword “paris”
So I count this :
I don’t count that :
And here’s what I found :
| For Bing : 86,52% of the first 50 websites contained the keyword in the URL. |
| For Google : 71,16% of the first 50 websites contained the keyword in the URL. |
and don't tell me that this was really dependent on the keywords in my list of 50 keywords.Why? Because bing was showing more websites (with the keyword in the url) than google .... 92% of the time.
So, yes, putting the keywords in the url is really important for BOTH. But it seems that it’s a lot more important for the new Microsoft search engine “Bing”.
So if your strategy is focusing on bing for some niche keyword/market, don’t even think of not putting the keywords in your url or domain name.
Well, I think it’s a bad idea to put such a big weight on the keywords in the url, they should focus more on the content. Besides…this is gonna give more weight to hundred of thousands of parked domains… because domain resellers usually buy domains with keywords in them...
If you’re thankful happy I spent the day programming that script, and then sharing this information with you, I wouldn't mind you talk about it, vote for it on digg (check on the right side bar) or link back to here ;o)
Here are the stats for those of you who want all the figures :
| keywords | nb of sites with the keyword in the url for google | nb of sites with the keyword in the url for bing |
| test | 25 | 34 |
| seo | 28 | 33 |
| funny | 34 | 44 |
| hello | 42 | 45 |
| welcome | 25 | 20 |
| surprise | 35 | 47 |
| love | 39 | 47 |
| there | 32 | 45 |
| boat | 40 | 46 |
| cars | 30 | 38 |
| design | 45 | 44 |
| pay | 41 | 46 |
| remember | 37 | 47 |
| lyrics | 42 | 45 |
| songs | 25 | 32 |
| manchester | 46 | 48 |
| paris | 42 | 49 |
| beijing | 40 | 48 |
| china | 39 | 45 |
| stop | 44 | 47 |
| photos | 22 | 36 |
| hill | 44 | 47 |
| bikes | 30 | 40 |
| pens | 28 | 40 |
| software | 33 | 41 |
| games | 32 | 39 |
| computers | 17 | 35 |
| folk | 40 | 47 |
| how | 34 | 45 |
| when | 23 | 45 |
| miss | 40 | 49 |
| area | 36 | 46 |
| paper | 34 | 49 |
| headset | 32 | 46 |
| iphone | 42 | 41 |
| news | 37 | 43 |
| php | 47 | 48 |
| drupal | 43 | 44 |
| marketing | 37 | 46 |
| english | 35 | 38 |
| write | 28 | 47 |
| script | 43 | 48 |
| manuel | 35 | 48 |
| language | 35 | 45 |
| tutorial | 36 | 36 |
| berlin | 45 | 47 |
| shanghai | 33 | 44 |
| trip | 43 | 46 |
| casino | 32 | 43 |
| finance | 32 | 44 |
| Average number of sites with the keyword in url (among the first 50) | 35,58 | 43,26 |
| total sites with keywords (of the 2500 checked) | 1779 | 2163 |
| total sites checked | 2500 | 2500 |
| % of sites among the 50 firsts with the keyword in the url | 71,16% | 86,52% |
Google and javascript, new honeymoon
10
Jun
Jun
Yes, google can understand some of the javascript links, and will soon be able to understand more. They just said so at the googe I/O gathering.
What does it mean?
It means that for years, we seo experts, were telling you “NO, DON’T, Please take out that ugly javascript link that google doesn’t understand”
Now we will tell you “no, don’t, please take out that ugly javascript link that still many search engines don’t understand, even if google understand it now”.
Baidu doesn’t, yahoo doesn’t, and we don’t know yet about bing (the new Microsoft search engine), but there are big chances that it doesn’t. So, yes, continue not to use javascript links whenever you can, and always prefer the old html link tag <a href=”” title=””> </a>
What are the javascript links google can understand?
google can understand these javascript links :
- <div onclick="document.location.href='http://gotothispage.com/'">
- <div onclick="myfunctionname('gotothispage.html')"><a href="#" onclick="myfunctionname()">that's a cool page dude</a>
- <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open ('youcometothispage.html')">please open this page</a>
so yes you can use them, but please, avoid them when not necessary...
Google Wiki Search and Search Engine Optimization
4
May
May
What is google wiki search?
It's the new service of google that let's you adapt the search engine response pages (SERP) to what you like.
What does it mean?
It means you can change the ranking of the websites in google according to your wishes.
For exemple, you type in "bar", but you don't like the first answer of google, but you like very much the 7th one (which is a very cool bar), so you can delete the first one, and put the 7th on top of the google results!
How google wiki search is going to change your search engine optimization?
Think as a search engine (as always). What if 1000 people change this 7th answer to put it first, you would probably consider that "yes", maybe this 7th website should be first... and you would change the natural response for every one. Well, i think it's exactly what google is starting doing. They found a way to make people improve their search engine and work for them... for free!
Back to the Content is King :
It's gonna give more power to your content. You probably, like me, fall sometimes on websites that do not respond to your query, but that are first because they optimize the web page to be first. well, now you can delete them, and google will know it.
If you don't want your website to be deleted... well, better provide the right information to the right query then.
Google is getting better, what about your own website? ;o)
