Social Patterns Michael Nguyen on Search Engine Marketing

With the release of several Firefox extensions by Google – we can take a look at how Google officially implements PageRank queries.

Firefox extensions are packaged files. Download the extension file and unzip it, you’ll notice there are several directories. The location of source files will vary from extension to extension, so you’ll have to surf around for a bit.

For example, download the Google toolbar file (google-toolbar.xpi). Now unzip it. You’ll see a directory structure like this:

Inside the chrome directory, there is a file name google-toolbar.jar – unzip it. Now you’ll see a directory called google-toolbar. Inside this directory, you’ll see a couple more directories – go into the content directory.

Now you’ll see a ton of javascript files. You’ll notice a couple interesting ones: autofill.js, autolink.js, spellcheck.js.

But the one we really care about is pagerank.js. That’s right pagerank.js! Google’s official code for PageRank queries. I’ll leave it up to you to read through the code, but remember that mining pagerank is against Google’s terms of service, so be careful how you use it.

You might want to take a look at the Google Suggest code too – real interesting.

Just noticed this on the Google Labs homepage – Google Firefox Extensions.

There are three Firefox extensions you can download on the page:

Google Toolbar
Basically same toolbar as IE’s without popup blocking.

Google Send to Phone
Send short text messages of web page content to your mobile phone.

Google Suggest
Completes your search terms as you type them into upper right hand Firefox search box.

Microsoft acquires Claria and updates antispyware application to advise users to ignore Gator spyware. (via Boing Boing)

Update: Boing Boing got it wrong. Microsoft have not actually acquired Claria, but were simply rumoured to be in negotiations to do so.

Tomorrow Yahoo SMS Search launches. Text 92466 to test it out now. (via Om Malik)

Update: More news over at Yahoo Search blog.

Looks like Yahoo has been working under the radar on a jobs search engine. (via Joel Cheesman)

In addition to providing job listings from organizations which have paid to have their listings posted on the Yahoo HotJobs web site, Yahoo is now including job listings they have collected from the Web.

The Yahoo HotJobs search results pages separates listings from sponsored job listings and listings found on the Web. There are three types of listings on Hotjobs: Sponsor Companies, Featured Jobs and Jobs Results from the Web.

Sponsor Companies: Sponsor Companies are organizations which pay for premium placement. This is your normal sponsored type placement. Sponsor Companies may appear based on the category you select, the keywords you enter, the location you choose or a combination of these factors.

Featured Job Results: Featured Job Results are job listings from organizations which have paid Yahoo! HotJobs to have their listings posted. The order of these results is determined by how relevant your listing is to the search query.

Job Results From the Web: Job Results From the Web are relevant job listings that have been collected from across the Web. The order of these results is determined by how relevant your listing is to the search query.

Yahoo has been aggregating job listings from local job listing sites like Careerboard, Jobvertise, and Backpage. In addition to collecting job listing sites, Yahoo has also been pulling job listings from corporate, school, and government sites.

For an example, look at this search.

The official Google Toolbar is finally coming to Firefox (my browser of choice) around July 7th.

Hey Googlebar folks, long time no talk. I thought I’d drop you a note to give a heads up on something Google will be releasing next week: a version of our IE Toolbar for Firefox. It will most likely be released on July 7th, but press releases will go out at 9pm on July 6th. Since you were in the Google-toolbar-for-firefox space first, it’s conceivable that the press might contact you for comment. If they do it would be great if you could hold of replying until our press releases go out on the 6th.

The toolbar will have the same features as the IE version except for features like pop up blocking and autofill which are already in Firefox by default. I’m assuming AutoLink will be rolled out in the Firefox version, but we’ll have to wait to see.

Google will continue to keep the link to Mozdev’s Googlebar up on the Google Toolbar page, so you will have a choice between which toolbar you’d like to install.

The developers of Googlebar are discussing the ramifications of the official toolbar and whether or not to continue with Googlebar development.

Yeah, I really have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I knew it had to come sooner or later as Firefox became more popular, and to be honest, I haven’t had the time to dedicate properly to even basic tasks beyond support in a long time, nor does my work schedule look to be easing up anytime in the foreseeable future.

I hope they continue working on Googlebar, because Googlebar offers several added features that are not available in the official toolbar.

Dan Gillmor of Grassroots Media just launched HonorTags – basically another way to tag posts to describe the context of an author. (via Joi Ito)

Supposedly HonorTags will help readers find relevant/trustworthy content and increase control over how creators are identified. All you have to do is link to the HonorTags page using one of the many HonorTags, for example:

<a href=”http://honortags.com/HonorTagJournalism” rel=”tag”>HonorTagJournalist</a>

Seems to me like this is just a ploy to build some easy links. Technorati already offers tag aggregation using the same syntax and the HonorTags adds nothing new. Why would I need or want to use the HonorTags system?

Seriously, what is the point here?

I can tag this post HonorTagSpammer or HonorTagJournalism or any made up tag but how does that help you? Does tagging my content with HonorTags somehow make me more trustworthy or more accurate? I don’t think so and I don’t think you do either. Its up to you to decide what you consider is trustworthy and professional – some useless tag is not going to persuade you otherwise.

When did tags start replacing action-based credibility?

I recommend reading what Danny Sullivan had to say about tagging – he explains that while tags are useful in some situations, they have some very serious limitations.

Maybe I don’t get the idea behind HonorTags, so if anyone does – please leave me a comment.

If you are starting to get into PPC, you will most likely have your Google AdWords ad group setup to trigger on a broad match term.

Broad Match is the default option. If you include a general keyword like “mIf you are starting to get into PPC, you will most likely have your Google AdWords ad group setup to trigger on a broad match term.

Broad Match is the default option. If you include a general keyword like “marketing” in your keyword list, your ads will appear for a variety of terms – ranging from “search engine marketing” to “direct mail marketing”. You ads will show for expanded matches, plurals, and other relevant variations.

Obviously, broad matching can lead to untargeted clicks – so I’d recommend using the exact match or phrase match option when possible. After coming up with some targeted keywords, how do you determine which keyword is performing the best?

You need to do some tracking. You want to find out what terms people are searching for and what ad corresponds to their search. Then you can take that information and determine the value/cost of each click.

Continue reading PPC Tracking Basics

Check out these three interviews. All are very informative and cover three important topics in the search engine marketing world: tools, information retrieval, and press releases.

Interview with Digital Point’s Shawn Hogan
Interview with Dr. Garcia
Interview with Greg Jarboe