The Three Major Search Engine Liaisons

If you've never met or seen any of the engineers of the major search engines, here are some pictures that can help you recognize these individuals at the next conference you go to. All of them have their own Blog where you can find out more about who they are and what they do.

Matt Cutts - Goolge (blog)

Jeremy Zawodny - Yahoo (blog)

Robert Scoble - Microsoft (blog)

This one's for Jeremy...

If you ever get a chance to read Jeremy's blog, you'll quickly find out that he's a SQL guru. Below is my Google algorithm Jeremy style:

SELECT results FROM google WHERE search_term='some term'
  AND results NOT IN (SELECT results FROM yahoo WHERE search_term='some term')
  AND results NOT IN (SELECT results FROM msn WHERE search_term='some term')
  ORDER BY make_us_the_most_money ASC

More Images from Webmaster World

This was classic! Someone at the show was selling these t-shirts for $30 each. Anyone with disposable income, of course, bought one. Including you know who...

Here's another great image from PubCon. This one was taken after Matt found out we were recording him.

Wrap Up

Be sure to listen to the Podcast for our complete wrap up of Webmaster World and PubCon.

TrueLocal

Started in 2000, TrueLocal.com is the premier search engine for local search on the Internet. Jake Baillie joined the TrueLocal team in 2004 and hasn't looked back since. Jake brings to the table a vast knowledge of "Social Engineering", which has help propel TrueLocal to the forefront of local search on the Internet.

With over 13 million listings in their database, Jake predicts they have about 35% coverage of all small local businesses in the US. That being said, only about 50% of all businesses actually have a web site.

TrueLocal is one of the only local search engines that actually crawl the web sites they list. This gives them the distinct advantage of displaying more structured content to the end-user, giving them a much better search experience. Couple that with their simple, Google-like interface, and you have a winning combination.

Sign Up Today!

If you're a local business with a web site, we highly suggest you sign up today with TrueLocal.com. They are not a PPC type search engine, so great listings start at only $1 USD a month. This also means you can never suffer click-fraud by your competitors! This is definitely a win-win situation.

Tuesday Session Wrap Up

The way Webmaster World is organized, you can never attend all of the sessions. This means you have to pick and choose your sessions wisely. The podcast discusses what we learned in each session. Here are the sessions Jerry and I attended.

• Local Search: Real World Opportunities (both)
  All about the local search. This is an expanding market with huge potential. Last year there was over 400 million local search queries. By 2010 this number is expected to grow to more than 13 billion. If you're not in the local search market, you should be.
• Affiliate Site Strategies & Optimization (both)
  Want to make money work for you? Sounds like a stock market pitch, but it's not. What we learned at this session will blow your mind! If you ever get a chance to hear Greg Niland of GoodROI speak about affiliate marketing, do it.
• Blogging, Podcasting & RSS Feeds (michael)
  I was a little disappointed with this session. The Vegas session was 100% better and is what inspired me to start a podcast. Daron Babin of WebmasterRadio made this session worth it.
• Organic Search Forum (jerry)
  Jerry will leave notes here...
• Super Session: Blink! Thin Slicing Search (both)
  This was a great session about the user experience while searching. This session was packed with information, so be sure to listen to the podcast to find out more.

Tuesday was a great day, and for the most part, every session was well worth the time. The two notable sessions being Affiliate Site Strategies and the Super Session.

For the cost of Webmaster World, this is by far the best conference for the money. The hotel and taxi ride will cost you more than the conference. And the PubCon on the last day is worth the price alone.

Black Hat SEO Uncovered!

We finally get in contact with a Black Hat SEO and spammer. You will laugh when you hear what we found out!

Web Master World

It's next week and we'll be there for the whole show. We have a bunch of questions to ask, but could always use more. Be sure to post your questions for us to ask the search engine engineers before Tuesday next week.

Google Page Rank

Jerry talks about the Google Page Rank algorithm update and whether we should be worried about it.

Windows Live Beta

We contemplate the affects that Windows Live beta will have on the web as a whole. Discussing the direction of web sites and what it might mean in the future of site deleopment and advertising.

Black Hat Spammers (Part 2, continued...)

Well, we attempt to get ahold of the SEO firm that has been spamming us with promotional emails. Last week we tracked down the right number and extension for the spammer, but were directed to their voicemail. We'll keep trying!

Web Master World

Jerry and I will be heading to Web Master World in less then two weeks. Please post or email any questions that you might want us to ask any of the Google, Yahoo, and MSN engineers. We will ask them on your behalf and mention you in the podcast.

We'll be podcasting every day from Web Master World, so be sure to tune in to get the latest scoop!

You can also email your questions for the engineers to questions@websitemanagementtools.com

Thanks for tuning in!

Black Hat Spammers Uncovered (Part 1)

Getting tired of all those spam mails from SEO companies promising the world? Well we are. Today we try and expose one of these "Black Hat" spammers and get to the bottom of it.

Yahoo! Java Spam

Yahoo! has a Java spam hiccup last night.

SEO Training

Jerry's in Vegas this week at an SEO workshop and is letting us in on what you can expect if you attend one. Jerry is attending the Search Engine Workshops by Robin Noble and John Alexander.

Google Loves Broken HTML?

This is crazy! Someone has done a "detailed" study (yeah right) showing that Google loves broken html in web sites. Their methods are not only flawed, but the data is totally outrageous! We set about setting the record straight.

The New "nofollow" Tag

Google and some other search engines are now looking for "nofollow" tags in HREF's on web sites. This gives the webmaster more control over what links are followed both internally and offsite. We talk about how this works, and how you can benefit from using it.

Windows Live

What? Another new search engine from Microsoft! When will this end? I guess Microsoft has decided to add another search engine to the mix loaded with gadgets and more stuff to sign up for. We take a look at this engine and give some feedback as to why we think this is just another huge mistake by Microsoft.

Duplicate Content

What is duplicate content anyway? We talk about what it is and how you can keep Google from indexing duplicate content on your site. We also discuss some of the new emerging "Frankenstein Content" that is being used as spam and on AdSense web sites.

Supplimental Results in Google

Getting your web site out of the supplimental results in Google. You'll be surprised about how little it took to get one of our web sites out of the supplimental results in Google.

Next Week

Next week Jerry will be broadcasting from Las Vegas as the Search Engine Workshops conference and letting us in on what the latest trends are in SEO promotion and design.

Links and Back Links

How important are links anyway? We talk about ways you can discover who's linking to your site and how many links your Web site will need to get that couveted page rank (PR) of 5 or better.

Are you getting those emails that ask for link exchange? We'll teach you a couple tricks you can use to investigate those offers and find out which ones might actuall pay off.

http://www.alexa.com (Information on any web site.)
http://www.metricsmarket.com (Monthly visitor stats on any web site.)

Click Fraud and Log Files

Click fraud is a part of online advertising whether we like it or not. We discuss ways of dealing with click fraud and what you can do to secure a refund when you've been victimized. We talk about log analysis software and how you can use it to detect click fraud.

http://www.deep-software.com/ (Jerry's Pick!)
http://www.gnu.org/software/grep/ (Command line grep utility)

Advertising Your Web site

Need a boost in traffic to your Web site? Try advertising in newsletters specific to your industry. We talk about how to find newletters and what you should do to negotiate the cost of your first run (insertion). If you're an affilate marketer, we show you how to set up your advertising campaigns to hide your methods from your affiliate -- safely.

Robots.txt File

If your web site doesn't already have a robots.txt file, it should. We talk about how to create one and what tags to use or avoid.

Next Week's Show

Next week we plan on talking about Google's "Big Daddy" data center, how spiders are indexing blogs, and about the new "Frankenstein" web pages and sites. We will also be discussing how you can find those sites that are "Frankensteining" your content for their benefit.

Google Sitemaps

Google updated some of the features on Sitemaps this last week adding some ranking numbers to the Query Stats report that we talk about. It's still in beta, so we're not sure how useful these number really are, but Google seems to be on the right track.

During the discussion, we throw in a Web Wisdom Tip about how you might possibly use some of this new Sitemaps information to make some extra cash from your web site. Be sure to tune in for this one.

Google and Black Hat SEO

So where does Google discover Black Hat SEO techiques? You might be surprised. We talk about some of the ways they hunt for Black Hat SEO, and if you're doing it, you will be found (eventually) -- so don't do it!

As an aside, we throw in a "White Hat" tip about how you can boost your page's listing in Google using external Java and Style Sheets. No "Black Hat" needed!

Who's Ask Again?

Are they really the #4 engine out there? Or, do they still have investor money to burn? We talk about why it doesn't make sense to target this engine anymore and why they are on an aggresive campaign to ban users based on bandwidth usage.

Ask is a sinking ship...

While on the topic of Ask, we throw in another Web Wisdom Tip on what search engines you should be targeting and how to figure out which search engines are right to target for your Web site.

Introduction

Today we have a really great show for you. We've updated the lineup and will now have Jerry West from Web Marketing Now with us on all our future podcasts.

Today's Show

Today we're talking about domain spam that has been recently re-discovered in MSN again. We're also going to be chatting a little bit about buying and selling domain names and letting domain names expire -- what you should know, do, and expect if this is happening to you.

• What's New for Website-Manager
• Download Version 1.1.2

• What's New for Website-Manager
• Download Version 1.1.1

• What's New for Website-Manager
• Download Version 1.1.0

Last week we added a bunch more search engines, with more to come. We currently have requests for more Chinese and Japanese search engines, which we'll be adding soon. Please keep the requests coming.

Right now we are finishing up the addition of Cross-tab reporting, also known as PivotTable or rotating data. Cross-tab reports allow you to rotate a column in the report to the header. For instanace, if you wanted a report with your keywords down the left and the search engines across the top, you would need a cross-tab report to do it.