Search Sense

I read with interest the post from the Search Quality Team at Google in Dublin on link baiting and building popularity.

Spannerworks have been noting the positive ranking changes, driven by a link exchange network at the moment, with some interest. Not something we do, as they tend to only have a short term effect and it is a little “grey”.

There still seems to be jittery people out there, so I thought short synopsis of Google’s recent link building post and past pronouncements might help calm nerves:

Earned links - Google tries to determine which links are ”earned” links or what SEOs more commonly refer to as trusted. Nothing new here – Google has tried for some time to reward natural “earned” links with more importance.

Non-Earned links -  what happens to non-earned links (whatever Google decides in its wisdom for these to be) isn’t clearly defined. These could be links from a link ring, bought links, and Google seem to say these don’t impress them much. The post itself talks about “link-weighting” and hints at this. They don’t count for much, but also don’t downgrade your site either.

Buying and selling - Google considers paid links to be non-earned and will disregard these links if they can spot them.

Consistent with past Google pronouncements, the post states that sites known to be selling links might find their ability to “share the link Love” blocked.

Exchanged links = BAD - I’d ignore this little snippet - the definition of an exchanged link is so poorly defined, you’d be wasting your time working in this area.

Have good content / be a good citizen - of course! It naturally attracts good links.

Link baiting is fine - no problem in whipping out the old fishing tackle in case you were concerned.

Hope this helps. If you want more information re link and commuinity strategies. You know where we are.

Earlier this year Google acquired dMarc Broadcasting an advertising platform which connects advertisers direct to radio stations. Accordign to Google, they’ve been working on the integration of dMark into AdWords, which is now complete. They’ve started the beta test with a select group of US advertisers, and expect to rollout soon.

Through an online interface, advertisers will have the opportunity to target specific audiences by location, station type (taste) and by day and time.

 They’ll also have access to comprehensive reporting which will be a first for radio.

With over 98% of our staff recommending Spannerworks as a great place to work, we are very pleased to have that recognised by being voted into the top 30 of marketing employers in the Marketing Employer of the Year awards.

A phenomenal 2900 marketers from 292 organisations (a 45% increase in respondents from the 2005 survey) were canvassed on a range of issues affecting their working lives.

Culture, management style, and personal development were important issues along with working environment, benefits and the vision of a business.

Spannerworks were the top search engine marketing company in the list and a staggering 34 places higher than the only other SEM in there, who had plummeted over 44 places from their previous position.

We’re naturally proud of our business, the exciting environment, the phenomenal growth that all Spannerworkers have contributed to, the way we service clients and the cool, supportive, family style environment that brings out the very best in people.

We’d like to thank everyone who completed the survey - it’s not only great to have the encouragement and support from our people, but their suggestions on how to improve are invaluable. We’ll strive hard to keep Spannerworks a great place to work and act on those recommendations and opinions to make it even better.

We have high expectations for the 2007 survey.

Oh, and by the way, if you’d like to be part of our exciting adventure , we are still on the lookout for enthusiastic people with a passion for online - do check out the marketing jobs in the careers section of our site.

The new Ask City Search has an impressive set of features and a huge improvement on Ask Local. Compared to other players in local search, this really stands out for functionality and usability if not the wow factor of MSN and Google maps and aerial photos.

Ask gathers review information from many existing sources including Citysearch, ServiceMagic, Yelp, Tribune, OpenTable, RottenTomatoes, TripAdvisor, InsiderPages, JudysBook, Fandango and combines them with the business listings.

Under each listing there’s a link to help locate other businesses nearby. Very handy for locating the good restaurants near your hotel. On the mapping side, you can save maps and access them from a list of thumbnails.  You can draw freehand on the map and label places of interest for easy reference. And the thing I like most – drop a marker anywhere on the map to retrieve the address.

Can’t wait for the UK version.

We’re so used to the US being ahead of the UK in web technology and marketing, that to hear US executives say it’s the other way around is a bit of a shock. But that’s exactly what Yahoo!’s boss has been saying in the New York Times:

There are big differences between the advertising markets in Britain and the Unites States. In Britain, much of the advertising is national, while there are strong local and regional ad markets in America. Still, some believe that online advertising in Britain provides somewhat of a roadmap for where online ads in the United States and elsewhere may be heading. “The U.S. is so behind,” said Terry S. Semel, the chief executive of Yahoo, in a recent speech in London. “It’s certainly lagging the U.K. by at least a year or two.”

As well as a national advertising market, the UK has surged ahead in broadband adoption too. 47.4% of UK households now have broadband compared with 43.9% in the US, thanks to cut-throat competition in the ISP market here.

Part of the US “lag” is about legacy, according the article, about commitments both financial and psychological to TV as the lead-medium for advertising. That’s understandable - it is genuinely difficult to understand how far and fast people’s media consumption has changed and still is changing unless you keep a close eye on the figures.

I was impressed by simple slide someone from Google used at a recent meeting comparing the percentages of media spend in the average blue chip company with people’s consumption of media. While about a fifth of the average person’s media consumption is now web-based, spend on internet ad spend is only just over 6%.

And that’s just ad spend - think about the other, non-advertising-based marketing and communications opportunities for brands online. Creating better content, engaging with customers direct via social media, making sure that they are optimised in natural search…