A few years ago, in the days before the introduction of Google’s Florida Update, SEO was a quasi-Masonic vocation practiced by an expanding order of techno-monks who acted openly but held secret the minute details of their trade. As search engines and SEO techniques evolved, that old order was already dying, long before the discovery of Florida in November 2003.

I was reminded of the olden days yesterday when fielding a question over at one of the SEO Forums I spend time in. One of the new members wrote in asking about the correct range of Keyword Densities for the various search engines. That got me thinking about many of the lesser known tricks of the trade that have been used by search engine optimizers over the years and how some of these “tricks” have incorporated themselves into our SEO practice while others have been roundly rejected by SEO practitioners. Read more…

What is Social Networking and how will it affect online marketing in the coming years? That’s a question a number of people have been thinking about since the dawn of the commercial ‘net. In the earliest days, online social networks formed between users of bulletin board services (BBS). People met each other by joining the board with planned, in-person gatherings taking over entire cafes. That was a time so geeky it seems quaint in remembrance. Today’s social networks are enormous, robust and sophisticated. The medium is a lot of things but these days, there’s nothing geeky about it. Read more…

For years, the major search engines have been building membership lists by offering a diverse range of services to registered users. Yahoo and MSN, for instance, have offered email accounts to registered users for several years. The major search engines are working to brand user experiences on as many levels as possible and claim memberships as indicators of user loyalty.

The membership race heated up dramatically over the past two years with the introduction of Google’s wide array of membership driven services. Read more…

The room was excellent, providing seating for about 50 people per session. The chalkboard and flip charts were fully stocked with fresh chalk, clean brushes and brand-new Sharpie markers. There were three thermoses of organic coffee, which never seemed to empty, no matter how many cups were consumed. The overhead projector and the A/B/C switch (attached to the three laptops used by the presenters) were wired and the movie screen behind the podium automatically raised and lowered at the push of a button. Sizing up the situation at half past seven o’clock in the morning, Bruno, Frank and I smiled, each knowing something interesting was going to happen in just a few short hours. Read more…

Blogs have become a bastion of free speech on the web – where anyone can start their own personal commentary on any topic for free. Businesses use blogs to post their latest news, celebrities make fans salivate as they update their blogs with news about their day, and they even demonstrated the power to keep online vendors in line (Google bombing). The fact is, blogs have become massively popular and it seems the sky is the limit for this online phenomenon. But that is not the end of the story, I wrote this article to tell you how blogs are soon going to influence buyers of your products in the offline world. Read more…

In a few hours I will be boarding a small, single prop sea plane (likely a DeHavilland DHC3 Otter) for a short hop across the Georgia Strait into downtown Vancouver. There, I will be met by Frank Klassen and Bruno Hoffman, co-founders of Vancouver based Search Engine Business World, a conference and planning organization formed to educate Canadian businesses about search engine marketing.

Tomorrow, I will be speaking at the downtown campus of Simon Fraser University addressing topics ranging from a brief history of search to the latest tools and trends in search marketing. I am not certain if registration is still available but if you find yourself in Vancouver tomorrow morning and are in the mood for some informative fun, SFU Downtown is the place to be.

While in Vancouver, I have some spare time tonight and tomorrow afternoon. If any StepForth client or reader is interested in having a coffee, please feel free to call our office (1-877-385-5526) or email jimhedger@stepforth.com to arrange a time.

The banner across the top of the site reads, “In a World of Conflict, the Truth Must Survive”. Below the banner, we see a twenty-two year old image of a dead man, minutes before he met his fate. The image, captured by Israeli photographer Alex Levac in 1984, shows a Palestinian hijacker being led away by Israeli Defense Forces. Minutes after the shot was taken, the hijacker was dead. The official story issued by Israeli authorities said the hijacker was already dead when the IDF found him. The story illustrates the importance of war correspondence in an environment where the greatest casualty is almost always the truth. Read more…

Hi folks,

I made a critical error in my piece on Lycos yesterday, one that has left me with the writer’s equivalent to the blue-screen of death, the red-face of embarrasement. Yesterday I noted that Lycos owns Wired Magazine. That is not true. Wired Magazine is a Conde Nast publication.

Lycos owns Wired News.

Sorry about the error.

Google has made another alteration the Google Help Center, this time removing the assurance that Google’s results are completely automated. The change was first noted by Phillip Lenssen in his Google Blogoscope.

As recently as February 2, the document outlining Google’s Principles stated, ” The order and contents of Google search results are completely automated. No one hand picks a particular result for a given search query, nor does Google ever insert jokes or send messages by changing the order of results. Read more…

It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from Lycos. Long lost amidst the choppy seas of corporate change, Lycos was once one of the ruling elite. Today, Lycos appears to be a number of fragmented shells of its former self. That might be changing soon though. Read more…