From a recent patent application filed by Google for ranking blog search, one of the three things a blog should have is a blogroll, and being included in some high-quality ones will help too.

Google Blog Search has been gaining fans, just as its web search did years ago, thanks to sophisticate ranking technology. Have you moved your blog searching to Google, or do Technorati or other blog searches work for you instead?

SEO by the Sea blogger Bill Slawski has made a recent blog post about a filing by Google for ranking blog search turned up several points that could help a blog show up in a search, or keep it from being a factor.
(more…)

Looking back at last years search engine marketing activity I have listed a number of trends to summarise how things are looking to head in the coming year, of 2007.

1. Usability and will become increasingly important for natural search .

A major part of the process of SEO focus will shift towards website functionality and usability for two reasons for 2 reasons;

First, search engine algorithms are increasingly taking user-experience into consideration when calculating ranking.

Secondly, mainstream advertisers are moving back towards SEO but those advertisers will require something stronger than Top10 placements to justify spending money on the mysterious marketing miracle SEO represents. When an SEO can tell his or her clients they will not only get strong placements but will also get a website redeveloped specifically to increase conversions, that SEO will make more sales.

(more…)

Content freshness: Don’t just dump a bunch of new content on your Web site, but  consistently add new articles or content on a regular basis. Watch how the search engine robots behave when you start doing this consistently.

Does it matter if i change my host from a UK to a US host, but keep the domain address the same, like www.website.co.uk?

More web sites than you think change their IP addresses by moving to new servers each day. As long as your IP address doesnt change on a daily basis the web sites pagerank and rankings will not be affected dramatically.

(more…)

Vanessa Fox from Google and Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Watch (unfortunately, not for too long) talk about search engine optimization.

They share a lot of interesting tips for webmasters, by placing everyone in the story of Buffy, the vampire slayer.

(more…)

AOL researchers recently published the search logs of about 650,000 members - a total of 36,389,629 individual searches.

AOL’s search nerds intended the files to be an academic resource but didn’t consider that users might be peeved to see their private queries become a research tool. Last weekend, the Internet service provider tried to pull back the data, but by that point it had leaked all over the Web.

If you’ve ever wanted to see what other people type into search boxes, now’s your chance.

Which type of surfer are you?

• The Pornhound - Big surprise, there are millions of searches for mind-bendingly kinky stuff.
• The Shopper - AOL’s logs reveal that searches for “coupons” are a lot more common
• The Manhunter - The person who searches for other people.
• The Obsessive - The guy who searches for the same thing over and over and over.
• The Omnivore - Many users aren’t obsessive—they’re just online a lot. Their search terms, while frequent, show little repetition or regularity.
• The Newbie - They just figured out how to turn on the computer.
• The Basket Case - AOL being a pretend therapist who only responds to your problems (”I am sad”) with more questions (”Why do you say you are sad?”).

I often have people ask me what Google looks for in a web site, and what the web page is actually ranked on.

With a 3-part update at the end of 2005 nicknamed Jagger, Google has essentially changed many of the rules and have thrown the SEO community for a loop.

The update was one of the biggest events in the past couple years (probably since the Florida Update of 2003).

Article at http://evolt.org/node/60553

This article covers what needs to be focused on from an SEO point of view.

With a few key areas that have impacted the way sites rank and how an SEO (or a business owner optimizing their own site) needs to approach and address the various components.