Browing the SERPs this morning whilst searching for some bargains for the Wii, I noticed a more widespread use of extended snippets, within many of the results presented.

Exended Snippets within SERPS

Two things strike me, firstly this may indicate a move a shift from Google’s perspective, perhaps away from the usage of the description tag for descriptions on results pages. Google tends to take its description for the results pages from three main sources namely:

1. The Meta Description Tag - many sites optimise this for circa 160 characters
2. Content from the page itself
3. DMoz Directory - however this practise appears much less common if not obselete.

Certainly as mentioned above, the further utilisation of page content for the results snippet may not be beyond the realms of possibility given that Google already determines importance and priority for the usage on Sitelinks. However there is no doubting that the top two (namely the meta description and the page content), hold higher traction in terms of usage.

These changes albeit small could however impact significantly on user behaviour. I remember seeing a panel moderated by Jon Myers at SES 2008 - where an organisation called BunnyFoot were presenting their findings (based on eye-tracking) on the blended search pages (which were reasonably new at the time) and it was suggested that these blended search pages were acting as landing pages in their own right, with people spending longer on the SERP’s page, prior to clickthrough. Such actions mean browsers are spending more time assessing their results prior to choosing a site, and thus any signals to a potential customer at these early stages are important.

I would suggest a similar example is the case here. Certainly the extended snippets give SEO marketeers/webmasters more resource in terms of provoking interest and encouraging clickthrough beyond the previous remit of circa 160 characters - particular as these results become more optimised in their own right - which the vast majority currently aren’t.

Certainly the use of longer snippets still appears to be in testing phase - with results sporadic. However given Google’s recent flurry of new ‘improvements’ , one can’t discount that this may become more mainstream in the coming months.

Today has seen the launch of a significant development from Google, namely Searchwiki.

Holistic Google SearchWiki snapshot

Searchwiki is described by Google as follows:

a way for you to customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page.

The changes you make only affect your own searches. But SearchWiki also is a great way to share your insights with other searchers. You can see how the community has collectively edited the search results by clicking on the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.

The ability to move results around is indeed quite a nice touch, however I can’t help think the comment facility potentially opens up a completely different can of worms, and one which may POTENTIALLY carry a sinister undertone.

As well as the ability to move results around, SearchWiki also allows user interaction via the addition of a comment button. Such responses can then be seen by others by clicking on the ‘See all notes for this SearchWiki’ option at the bottom of the page.

Now I would suggest further to going any further here, the likelihood of anybody actually exploiting this is minimal and given the delay in publishing any responses (and the fact all Googles responses were strangle positive - which lets be honest is never the case) there must be some form of moderation in place (really can’t help thinking Google won’t have put anything live here without considering potential implications. However as someone who looks after brands online interests I for one would like to understand just what implications this does have from a brand reputation perspective, and what can be done if it is utilised from such a perspective.

Certainly food for thought….

No, your eyes do not deceive you.

Google has released its very own guide to SEO, the aptly named ‘Search Engine Optimization
Starter Guide’. Developed by Google’s very own search quality team, it goes into a lot of the on-page SEO considerations such as:

• Title Optimisation
• Page Naming
• Navigation
• Content
• Page Structure
• Image Optimisation
• Robots Management

All in all a decent starting point, however it is interesting to see one major aspect of modern day SEO missing or more precisely hidden and not at all prominent.

Surely some more detailed referencs to linkage, and the role it plays in the optimisation process. The only real references to ‘promotion’ in the document are:

Good practices for promoting your website
• Blog about new content or services - A blog post on your own site letting your visitor base
know that you added something new is a great way to get the word out about new content or
services. Other webmasters who follow your site or RSS feed could pick the story up as well.
• Don’t forget about offline promotion - Putting effort into the offline promotion of your
company or site can also be rewarding. For example, if you have a business site, make sure
its URL is listed on your business cards, letterhead, posters, etc. You could also send out
recurring newsletters to clients through the mail letting them know about new content on the
company’s website.
• Know about social media sites - Sites built around user interaction and sharing have made
it easier to match interested groups of people up with relevant content.
Avoid:
-  attempting to promote each new, small piece of content you create; go for big,
interesting items
-  involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the
top of these services
• Add your business to Google’s Local Business Center - If you run a local business,
adding its information to Google’s Local Business Center will help you reach customers on
Google Maps and web search. The Webmaster Help Center has more tips on promoting
your local business.
• Reach out to those in your site’s related community - Chances are, there are a number
of sites that cover topic areas similar to yours. Opening up communication with these sites is
usually beneficial. Hot topics in your niche or community could spark additional ideas for
content or building a good community resource.
Avoid:
-  spamming link requests out to all sites related to your topic area
-  purchasing links

Source: Google Search Engine Starters Guide

Whilst it does refer to a number of methods of acquiring linkage to the site, I can’t help thinking this may provide a slightly lobsided view of the importance of off-page in the SEO process to beginners. Yes on-page is important but lets face it MoneySupermarket would be nothing without the million odd links it has pointing to it, neither would Tesco etc etc, and thus anyone reading this could be forgiven for thinking merely implementing such tactics without any offpage would give them a reasonable chance of competing (which on non-competitive terms/sectors - such as rarest baseball cards - may be the case - but not likely when we are talking casino, car insurance or the like). I guess the real worry here is many DIY-SEO’ers may (continue) to look at SEO as merely an on-page exercise with little consideration to the promotion/off-page aspect of the process.

I will finish with the fact It is a good document, and certainly worth a read (would suggest if you are a intermediate to expert SEO there is very little you will get out of it). Its not really going to tell you anything amazing, however it is good to see Google out there, and at last having more of a say in SEO.

I, like many have been following the recent events in the US election, with the fight for the White House. It was therefore interesting to see the influence online has played in the campaign. Two recent articles have really struck a cord as a result.

Firstly, Sage Lewis highlighted the importance of online (and in particular Search and Social Media) played in Obamas rise to the White House. In his article, Sage mentioned a number of interesting statistics, namely:

• There are nearly 2 million links to Obama’s website, nearly twice as much as those pointing to John McCains website.
• According to statistics released by Rubicon Consulting, “Democrats are more active online than Republicans. Democrats are more likely to participate in online communities, and say they’re more heavily influenced in their voting decisions by information they find online.”
• Obama’s campaign had social media at its heart, not just in terms of the site itself, but also in terms of the personnel involved. The involvement of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, shows the importance of social media within the strategy.

The second article of particular interest to search was Kate Kay on Clickz. In the article, Kate highlighted that Obama’s campaign spent nearly $8 million through October to Google, Yahoo, Facebook, news Web sites, ad networks, and in-game ad firm Massive (which I talked about at the recent Interactive Marketing show in Manchester). In particular it is interesting to see where the money was spent.

• Just over $4 Million on Paid Search - roughly broken down $3.5 Million to Google, with Yahoo accounting for about an eighth of that, with $673000.
• Nearly $8 million spent on online ads.
• Interestingly, the spend on Social Media comes to the fore. Nearly three quarters of the social media budget used in September alone, with Facebook taking the lions share.
• The use of MSN owned Massive Incorporated (well worth a look) was interesting alone. The campaign placed ads pushing an early voting message in EA games, including a racing game called “Burnout Paradise,” targeting them to players in 10 battleground states.
• Ad networks were a particular focus with more than $600,000 was paid to a variety of networks throughout the year, including AOL’s Advertising.com, Collective Media, Undertone Networks, Burst Media, Quigo, DrivePM, Pulse360, Specific Media, and online video networks Broadband Enterprises and Tremor Media.
• Local online media targeting also saw significant spend with around $100000 being spent.

Politics is an area many people have an opinion about, and it is therefore suprising it is often not integral to modern day political campaigns, however it is encouraging to see more and more focus given to Online. In particular key channels such as Search (inc Online PR/Blogging), Display Online Brand Management (and monitoring in particular), should be a fundamental part of any modern day political framework.

Given the noise that has been generated on Twitter by many of my search colleagues with regards to the US Elections, it is suprising that McCains camp didn’t use online as a bigger battleground, and I personally think this is the first of a more digitally focussed policital landscape moving forward, as even we in the UK start using online as part of the political juggernaut.

Google recently hosted their third webmaster chat event allowed some question time between webmasters and Google employees.

Below are a couple of the presentations from the event:

John’s slides on “Frightening Webmastering Myths”:

Jonathan’s slides on “Using the Not Found errors report in Webmaster Tools”:

Maile’s slides on “Where We’re Coming From”:

Much of the documents, in particular the frightening webmaster myths are pretty common sense, with only the following point standing out.

• Duplicate Content will penalise your site - Google say this is a myth. However I would add this is a very generalised way of looking at it. Whilst Google are good at establising internal content duplication - people aren’t - and when many people talk about duplicate content (well me anyhow) - it is the human factor that is important. After all Google isn’t potentially giving me valuable linkage back - a human is - and if he links to the wrong site, I stand the chance of getting no significant benefit at all. Secondly, if I have hundreds of duplicated pages (or even four or five), which one is authoratitive. Providing one copy to a user reduces the chance of that link going somewhere irrelevant - surely good for both users and search engines?

  Duplicate content still doesn’t matter?