The Rank Magic Blog

More Unfortunate Web Domain Names

August 28, 2007 ::: In March of last year, we posted some web domains that illustrated how some people just don't think. Well, now there's a new batch:

• Looking for a computer software to help you remote control another computer? Try IPAnywhere
  http://www.ipanywhere.com/
• Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe? Try their brochure website Go Tahoe
  http://www.gotahoe.com/
• Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church in Cumming, GA
  www.cummingfirst.com/
• Then, of course, there’s these brainless art designers, and their whacky website:
  http://www.speedofart.com/
• Looking for kids' clothes? Try Children's Wear
  http://www.childrenswear.com/
• There's also the online training company Via Grafix
  http://www.viagrafix.com/
• Finally, we're not to sure exactly what IHA Vegas does in Las Vegas because their web site is under construction. We can't wait.
  http://www.ihavegas.com/
   
  

Google Holds It's Lead

August 24, 2007 ::: comScore reports that in July 2007, Google sites ranked as the top core search engine with 55.2 percent share of searches among the top five search engines. Yahoo!  ranked second with 23.5 percent, followed by MSN/Live Search (12.3 percent), Ask.com (4.7 percent) and Time Warner Network (4.4 percent). ("Google sites" includes other sites that serve up Google results, such as  AOL and Netscape)

SEO Or PageRank – Which Is The More Important?

August 21, 2007 ::: Peter Nisbett wrote an article in Site Pro News with the above title. By SEO, he was referring to a very narrow version -- classical on-page keyword optimization, which is all SEO consisted of a few years ago. Really, he's asking which is more important: on-page keyword optimization? Or off-page link building? (At Rank Magic, we consider link building to be a part of SEO, but put that aside for the purposes of Peter's article.)

 

Peter writes, "Whether you believe in SEO or Page Rank and wonder which is more important, your thinking is irrelevant. You are wasting your time in wondering what is the correct answer to that question, since even if you knew it, there is little you could do to use that information."

Of course, what he means is that you can't separate the two any longer. Neither one is sufficient to get you the rankings you need without the other. <more in the article>

The Most Common Preventable Security Hole

August 17, 2007 ::: Jonathan James hacked into the Pentagon and NASA computer systems in 1999 at the age of 15 and became the youngest person to go to jail under the federal cybercrime law. Now 23, he was interviewed by PC Magazine (August 21, 2007 issue) about the state of online security. His response to a key question was important:

 

Question What is the most common preventable security hole you've seen Answer Aside from users, I'd have to say updates. Users always ignore messages about updating software, so they're often running vulnerable apps. I guess they don't realize that outdated software often is outdated because someone found a way to use it to take over your computer. Even after a vendor releases a patch for a new vulnerability, there are still a lot of people running the vulnerable software. Sometimes (probably not as rarely as you'd think) companies run vulnerable software for years because a computer is functioning as it should and they operate under an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" policy. Oh -- and don't use Internet Explorer.

Yahoo tops Google in Customer Satisfaction Survey

August 14, 2007 ::: For the first time, Yahoo! has replaced Google as the No. 1 portal of choice, according to a customer satisfaction survey reported in Computerworld.

Yahoo's score is up 4% to 79 on the 100-point scale of the annual University of Michigan American Customer Satisfaction Index on e-business Web sites. While Yahoo's stock among users is rising, Google's is on the wane, according to the report. Google fell 3.7% to 78, the second time in as many years that its score declined.

The results indicate a battle brewing between the two Internet giants, but the survey's author says to keep an eye on Ask.com.

Paid (PPC) Search versus SEO

August 9, 2007 ::: Increasingly I read and hear about people in the Internet marketing business arguing over whether paid search (pay per click ads) is more valuable than organic SEO, and vice versa. While there are some fascinating and relevant arguments on either side, research shows that marketers are quite satisfied with both.

 

A report from the SEMPO State of the Market Survey from about 18 months ago shows that 83% of respondents were using PPC compared to only 11% using SEO. Other reports show that the value of SEO is rising as user sophistication increases (according to Chris Boggs in the Spring 2007 edition of Search Marketing Standard). Marketing Sherpa's 2005 report showed SEO conversion rates overtook PPC rates at 4.2% versus 3.6%. That's quite the opposite of what had been found the year before.

 

The Direct Marketing Association reported in 2005 on a list of "online marketing strategies that produce the best ROI that PPC and SEO were rated equally according to US retailers, behind only "having a website" and "using email marketing". A more recent study by Marketing Sherpa, though, showed SEO ahead of email marketing, with PPC a close third.

 

One thing seems to be true: if a given web site shows up in both the organic search engine listings and the PPC ads, that seems to super-validate it as a good choice, which increases the likelihood of a searcher clicking on one of those listings.

Local Search Is Important

August 1, 2007 ::: A recent survey by ComScore found that 47% of people doing a local search on the Internet visited a local merchant as a result of their search while 41% made contact offline. More than a third (37%) made contact online as the result of a local search.

 

Obviously it pays to show up in local search, especially Yahoo! Local, Google Local, and MSN/Live Local unless you don't have a local component to your business.

 

You can add your business to Google Local here. And you can add your business to Yahoo! Local here. MSN/Live local results come from yellow page listings or you can add your listing here.