Monday, November 01, 2010

SEO, ORM, Ethics and the greater good of Google

Hypothesis: 
How long does it take and what effort will it take, to change a misspelling in a Google Search Query? Be it a proper name, Client's Trademarked Brand or Product name?
Ex: "Dawn Maire"


Dawn Maire (Correct spelling) is CSO at @Rockfish - Having recently changed jobs, Dawn is Chief Strategy Officer and since my new title is Sr. Manager, Content Strategy, Search and Social at Rockfish, that would make her my boss. 

While getting to know Dawn and while she was getting to know me on a recent visit to the NWA office of @Rockfish, She asked, "Does that mean you can make me pull up on Google for my real name, instead thinking it’s a 
misspelling of WWE Diva Dawn Marie?" 


Without thinking much, I said "of course, would tomorrow be okay?", She said "That would be great!" After a bit more thinking, I asked, "What do you want to be 1st for your name?" She said, "I dunno, how about my LinkedIn profile?". Knowing this plays well to using my search skills responsibly, I said "Ok, I'll do it right before 10pm"

Enhanced by Zemanta

How Search Works with @mattcutts

Monday, September 27, 2010

Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications

"The New York Times reported this morning on a Federal government plan to put government-mandated back doors in all communications systems, including all encryption software. The Times said the Obama administration is drafting a law that would impose a new 'mandate' that all communications services be 'able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages' — including ordering '[d]evelopers of software that enables peer-to-peer communication [to] redesign their service to allow interception'."

PubCon Update Blog : steve plunkett

PubCon Update Blog:: "Plunkett will be speaking on the much-anticipated analytics and measurement sub-conference session entitled 'Competitors From the Dark Side: Rogue SEO Tactics,' where he will be joined by CSHEL.com principal Carolyn Shelby, Gallucci, and WebmasterWorld founder and chief executive Brett Tabke.

“I'm looking forward to the great brains that are going to PubCon,” said Plunkett. “From social media to search, this is the conference of the year,' added Plunkett."

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Easy PHP Blackhole Trap with WHOIS Lookup for Bad Bots

"One of my favorite security measures here at Perishable Press is the site’s virtual Blackhole trap for bad bots. The concept is simple: include a hidden link to a robots.txt-forbidden directory somewhere on your pages. Bots that ignore or disobey your robots rules will crawl the link and fall into the trap, which then performs a WHOIS Lookup and records the event in the blackhole data file."
Enhanced by Zemanta

The Future of Ad Agencies and Social Media

"To keep up with ever-changing advertising and marketing options, ad agencies are rapidly adopting new strategies and outlooks on how consumers interact with brands. While many ad agencies have been slow to adopt social media, others have been keeping up with the trends quite well."

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Saying Thank You for ReTweets, and Signal v Noise

"On Friday, @StevePlunkett and I started a small column on this blog called “Steve’s Shorts.” It grew out of my admiration for Steve’s view of the social web and an idea that small observations can be powerful and worth talking about.

That first post had an interesting result. Apparently a behavior on Twitter can go unnoticed, a statement said in 140 characters on Twitter can float by without response, but point out that behavior or that comment and put it on blog and suddenly it has a new importance. In this case, some of that response seems made without consideration to the bigger picture or the reputation and generosity of the person who offered the original comment."

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Matt Cutts on Big Brand BlackHat Sites





How determines what Black Hat is? this guy.. @MattCutts head of Google Webspam

PubCon Las Vegas 2010 Black Hat Session and Discount registration code

Black hatImage via WikipediaBelow is a 20% off coupon to PubCon Vegas
Enter Code: rc-3099415 when you register and get 20% off.
I'm Speaking on the Black Hat SEO panel.. it's going to be fun.. i'm going to out some famous websites doing stuff that @mattcutts and @google could remove them for.
(you better hope it's not one of your clients...)
PubCon Vegas 2010
Enhanced by Zemanta

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

How should I configure If-Modified-Since on database-driven pages?

How Do You Find High-quality SEO Services?

"Beware of SEOs using techniques that put you at risk. This includes buying links, cloaking with an intent to deceive users and/or search engines, stealing content, etc. Find out and be assured that the partner you choose doesn't mess around with any tricks that could harm your company."

How Do You Find High-quality SEO Services? - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

Is SEO Integrated Into Your Localization Process?

"For many, the question posed in the title of this post seems silly, often resulting in either a confused expression, or a “how dare you ask that question” look from localization managers. Yet over the past few weeks I have spoken to a number of localization and SEO managers at Fortune 500 companies who still could not answer that question. I recently had the localization manger tell me, “Well of course I understand SEO and we go to great lengths to ensure all the keywords are translated and put into the meta keywords tag!” He was shocked when I told him the engines have ignored that tag for years, and that his efforts were wasted."

Is SEO Integrated Into Your Localization Process?

Search Engine Heat Maps

Search Engine Heat Maps


"Our screenshots have a resolution of 1024x768 pixels and the whole resolution (SERP that the user notices on its screen) had on principle a perception of 100 percent. Some regions of each SERP that we analyzed go from strength to strength while others don't.

For example, Google owns the most effective sponsored link area when compared to all others. The regions of interest are all equal, but of course based on different parts of a website,
which made it much harder to answer all those questions
mentioned earlier in the post.

Are all Results on Search Engines Equal? A Surprising Journey Within the SERPs - Search Engine Watch (SEW)

This is what the direct comparison looks like. All areas (Logo, Search results, Searchbox and Button, and Adbox) we will analyze separately, too. We saw some points within our analysis that are strong or weak within a search engine, which is quite interesting."

Monday, August 30, 2010

Steve Shorts: ReTweets and Cranking on Gmail?

"Why I Don’t Thank for Retweet
by Steve Plunkett.

When people say “Thanks for the RT,”, I always shoot back, “Thanks for the good info”.. I read it, I may have even blogged it. It was good info, so I passed it along, you don’t need to thank me for sharing and trusting your credibility. Believing in you enough to click on a link? That you earned anyways via engagement and professionalism. But you are welcome, again, thanks for the info. When you retweet me, you are saying “Thanks for the info”."

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

SXSW 2011 PanelPicker - SEO - Optimize EVERYTHING!

"Steve Plunkett, M/C/C
Description 'Digital Asset Optimization' - Search affects every part of every job for every client, are you offering all the SEO services or leaving money on the table? - Steve Plunkett, M/C/C Inc. Pr, podcasts, images, blogs, social Media, Video, PDFs, what digital assets are you forgetting to utilize that could bring your client business.

Questions Answered :
What is a list of EVERYTHING I can optimize for search?

What are ways to grow my client's business and increase their presence in search?

I'm working with an ad agency, what else can i do for them?

i'm sub contractor for Pr Firm, how can i make more money with them?

I am in-house SEO for Fortune 500, what am i missing?"

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

User Behavior and Digital Asset Optimization

"Internet user behavior is always changing, but recent surveys by Nielsen and Pew show a significant shift underway. The average amount of time an individual spent online dropped from 57 hours in April to 54 hours in May, marking the second consecutive month-to-month decline. The number of Web pages a user visited also dropped, however the number of sessions per person held steady and the number of domains visited per person increased. As for how users are spending their time online, video viewing continues to rise, as does time spent on social networks or blogs. Almost one quarter of the time an average user is online is spent on social sites. Bruce, Susan and Virginia hypothesize what’s at the root of the behavioral changes and what that means for businesses online."

SEM Synergy - User Behavior & Digital Asset Optimization

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

PubCon Vegas 2010


"PubCon, the premier search and social media conference and expo will hold its multi-track Las Vegas event on November 8 - 11, 2010 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada.

PubCon Las Vegas 2010, supported by the industry's leading businesses, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors involved in social media, Internet marketing, search engines, and online advertising, will offer a week-long look at the future of technology presented by many of the world's top speakers." - Like Me! =)

WebmasterWorld PubCon Conference Vegas 2010


Thursday, June 10, 2010

PubCon Social Media and Search Marketing Conferences 2010

PubCon Social Media and Search Marketing Conferences 2010 steveplunkett: "PubCon Classic is a fantastic informal networking event giving attendees a chance to rub elbows with friends both new and old in a relaxed environment, and this year we're holding it on the first night of PubCon Las Vegas to get the week off to a great start."

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Ruud Questions: Steve Plunkett on Google Is Our Friend | Search Engine People | Toronto

"@steveplunkett contacted me on Twitter to explain just how he disagreed with me [yes, see, you should be on Twitter too and follow @ruudhein as well -- you not only get to be hip & happening but also get to join the conversation and tell me just how wrong I am]."

Ruud Questions: Steve Plunkett on Google Is Our Friend | Search Engine People | Toronto


Tuesday, May 25, 2010

PubCon Conference Vegas 2010 - Steve Plunkett

: "PubCon, the premier search and social media conference and expo will hold its multi-track Las Vegas event on November 8 - 11, 2010 at the Las Vegas Convention Center in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada.

PubCon Las Vegas 2010, supported by the industry's leading businesses, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors involved in social media, Internet marketing, search engines, and online advertising, will offer a week-long look at the future of technology presented by many of the world's top speakers."

Thursday, April 15, 2010

PubCon Social Media and Search Marketing Conferences 2010

"Online PR intersected with Search Marketing years ago. Today we find it even more intertwined with Social Media. Brands, products, and executives are frequently discussed on Social Media sites. This session will focus on the connection between Press Relations and Social Media – the responsibilities and the possibilities."

PubCon Social Media and Search Marketing Conferences 2010

PubCon Speaker Biographies

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results – scoring big for those clients. At M/C/C, he offers clients a wide array of results-oriented services including keyword research, website development, blog strategy and planning and social networking consulting in addition to organic SEO.

Conference Speaker Biographies Steve Plunkett

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

SMX Advanced London 2010 Full Agenda Day 1

"Advanced Organic Track
Leveraging Digital Assets For Maximum SEO Impact – When Google introduced Universal Search in 2007, it sent shockwaves through the search marketing community. The typical reaction: 'How can my optimised content rank when local, news, video and images results are pushing it off the SERPs?' The simple answer is to optimise multiple types of 'web assets' in addition to the text on your web pages, and you’ll often get more exposure on search result pages. Though the answer is simple, the SEO techniques to achieve the desired result usually aren’t. This session looks at the state of universal search today, and how to leverage different types of content to gain maximum advantage.

Speakers:

Rob Kerry, Head of Search, Ayima
Steve Plunkett, Dir, Search, M/C/C (see below)

SMX Advanced London 2010 Full Agenda Day 1


(unavailable - time conflict)
(Speaking @SearchExchange on the same day - http://searchexchange.org/agenda/day-1)

Friday, March 19, 2010

The State of Social Marketing Integration

"There are now hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide using social networks, blogs, microblogs, online forums and video-sharing sites, and marketers have followed them there. Social media marketing has gone from experimental to must-have, and that increases the importance of adopting an integrated social strategy."


and every single bit of this can be enhanced or destroyed by SEO.

Monday, March 15, 2010

PubCon South Speakers

"M/C/C's Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for Internet marketing with a focus on search engine optimization (SEO), Social Media, Digital Asset Optimization, Online Reputation Management and Internet user behavior.

Prior to joining M/C/C, Plunkett served as the director of sales and marketing for a leading Dallas Web site and advertising firm, where he consulted with clients on SEO and Internet advertising, ensuring that his clients' Internet and advertising strategies were in line with current business practices and branding. Plunkett has more than a decade of experience with online marketing and SEO, including his duties as Web sales manager for an ISP and Web development firm beginning in March 1995."