By Craig Hordlow, Chief Strategist
On June 30, 2008, the Google Webmaster Central Blog published a post titled, “Improved Flash Indexing.”  The post immediately generated lots of buzz amongst the marketing and web development communities.

The danger here is that the message of their post can be misinterpreted as “Google is now indexing Flash” (as though they hadn’t before or, worse yet, that no SEO concerns remain with Flash).

The discussion on Flash as it relates to SEO falls in two basic categories:
1.    How well is Flash indexed?
2.    How can I use Flash within my SEO campaign so that it will not compromise results?

Ultimately, the second question is the more important one. Googlebot may improve its indexing significantly, but as long as plain HTML driven sites are the more powerful SEO option, we need to understand how we can and cannot use Flash within that framework.

But let’s back up.

Google has been indexing Flash for years. The indexing has been poor, however, and the improvements made have been limited to reading text-only content. Text in images is still not being read (according to the aforementioned post), and there are technical limitations as well:

1.    Googlebot does not execute some types of JavaScript – which can result in Flash files not being indexed.
2.    External resources are not indexed as part of your Flash file (they are loaded separately).
3.    Bi-directional languages (Hebrew, Arabic) are not currently indexed.

Google is working on the issues above, but as long as Flash-driven sites remain a liability in a competitive SEO campaign, these improvements are not as exciting as we might be led to believe.

So why is a Flash-driven site still an inferior SEO option?

1.    Google is not splitting up a Flash file into multiple files (in the “pure” SEO sense), so your Flash file will remain one large HTML file. Would you rather optimize your own HTML files, carefully placing keywords in important tags, or have Google making guesses as it does its conversions?
2.    An SEO campaign starts with strategy. Even if Google could perfectly index Flash, the basic SEO elements (title tags, H1, H2) don’t have powerful Flash alternatives.

Our recommendations for Flash remain:

•    If you intend to have an SEO campaign, build separate HTML entry pages, or minimize the use of Flash to non-critical, embedded components of your well-optimized HTML pages.
•    Before you rule out Flash (if SEO is a clear objective), determine whether the content you want in Flash has any SEO value. Often, Flash is used as a creative tool (e.g. to entertain). If your Flash piece is unlikely to be the potential destination of search queries, don’t compromise your creative objectives for an unlikely SEO visitor.

by Andy Leinicke, Media Director, PPC

According to Alexa, YouTube is generating more page views than facebook, myspace, and even Google itself. It holds an enormous inventory for advertisers that has remained largely untapped – until now.

Google recently invited me to one of its Advertiser Forums in Mountain View. There, I got to see all of Google’s new video advertising products firsthand, including exciting YouTube opportunities.

Getting Started
There are two questions you need to ask to get started with a Google video program. The first is which network to run in. Google has two: the Google Contextual Network, and YouTube (it’s important to note that YouTube now includes streaming premium partners).

The second question to consider is which format your ad will take. Google now has lots of exciting format options. I’ve listed formats and video networks below:

*InVideo ads are currently only available to advertisers with managed accounts.

Click to Play (CTP) ads have been around for a while. It’s possible to load these via AdWords and target across the Content Network in the same way as text or image ads.

YouTube Video Ads, on the other hand, run exclusively on YouTube and need to be arranged manually. They can be broadcasted for a mass audience on YouTube’s home page or targeted by category or by search terms. Here is an example of a video ad for Rolling Rock that plays on the YouTube homepage:

The ad directs to a cool, engaging microsite customized for this campaign:

Companion ads are 300X250 pixel units that appear next to your custom home page placement or beside videos on a YouTube Watch Page (the pages where you actually view videos are called Watch Pages). Here is Google’s mock up for a Companion Ad:

An InVideo ad is a dynamic flash overlay that appears on the bottom of a video while it’s playing. Google claims that this ad unit is much more welcome than other approaches such as pre-rolls or post-rolls. Users can expand or click on these ads and, unlike other YouTube tactics, the InVideo ad has direct response promise. In fact, Google claims that beta advertising programs have shown amazing click through and conversion rates using InVideo. Here is an example of a BMW Google InVideo ad at work:

The InVideo ad is completely controlled by the user. If the ad is good enough (Red Bricks Media can test for this), users will click through to an expansion and eventually a destination url:

YouTube’s social functionality gives users a brand new way to experience video. Another opportunity to advance your marketing efforts on YouTube is by utilizing their channel feature. Anyone can create a YouTube Channel for free. Channels are like an iTunes playlist and a MySpace page all in one. Here’s a Channel that some old friends of mine at Teton Gravity Research recently made:

TGR makes some of the best surfing and skiing movies out there. This YouTube Channel lets them build an online community that generates ticket and DVD sales.

But it’s possible to think even bigger with Channels. YouTube can create a custom Brand Channel with site-like functionality and special promotion features. Brand Channels have highly customizable interfaces, including a special logo area at the top. An example of this is the “Living Legends” Brand Channel:

This Brand Channel allows users to upload videos of themselves asking questions to legendary rock stars like Mick Jagger which Mr. Jagger responds with his own video post. Marketers can use similar technology to promote contests.

It’s easy to see that Google has introduced a vast array of ways to interact with audiences using video. Contact a Red Bricks Media rep to learn how Red Bricks Media can design a proposal that’s right for you.

By KC Swenson, Search Strategist

The proliferation of free web-based email services has provided Internet users with a ubiquitous communications platform; we can stay connected anywhere in the world. Gmail and Yahoo Mail are two of the most popular, each with millions of active users, and each regularly adding new services or expanding existing ones.  Every day, huge numbers of users of these free services log into their accounts and stay logged in all day, periodically checking email, stock quotes, and news feeds.

These millions of logged-in users are incredibly valuable to search engines.  When logged into their free services, both Google and Yahoo actively track your searches and store not only your search queries but the results served up to you, as well as any links you clicked.  This information is used to more accurately tailor the ads you see to your specific interests.  Many people using these services are unaware of this tracking, although the sites’ Terms of Service (TOS) or privacy statements clearly state that they collect user data.  From Yahoo’s privacy statement:

Yahoo! automatically receives and records information from your computer and browser, including your IP address, Yahoo! cookie information, software and hardware attributes, and the page you request.  Yahoo! uses information for the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfill your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients.     http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html

By signing up for an account, users automatically consent to this data collection, though it is likely that many who do so don’t bother to read the lengthy TOS statements to ascertain this. 

There is another way search engines utilize your search history, one with potentially significant ramifications for searchers.  It builds on the promise of personalization – a customized set of search results based on your search and click history.  In particular, Google tailors the results you see according to your prior actions, so if you are logged into your Gmail account, you stand to see a different data set than you would if you were logged out.  This is not implicitly stated anywhere and it isn’t possible to opt out.

Instead of a natural, unfiltered set of search results you may end up with results skewed by your history. This means different searchers performing the same search can unwittingly end up with different results, and it will not be clear why this is happening or what can be done about it. 

As searchers learn more about this new data collection trend and clickpath tracking, some will find it useful. Others, expecting an unbiased results page, may find it problematic and invasive.  What bothers many privacy advocates is what “other” uses Google and Yahoo may find for this data.  Over time, vast dossiers are being built on millions of Internet users - often without their knowledge and mostly without recourse.  This is the dark side of free and convenient email, and a good reason to stay logged out of these services between email checks if you’re concerned about your privacy.
 

by Craig Hordlow, Chief Search Strategist

Google’s introduction of “Universal Search” in May 2007 caused great buzz. Sergey Brin called it one of Google’s largest updates in years.

Google’s main index now includes video, news, images, maps, and books. Marketers are buzzing with excitement.

Google News results
If you have news, you submit your site for inclusion in Google News (they manually approve publishers). You can do so at:
http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py

Google Mobile News
If you’d like to suggest a site for inclusion in Google News for mobile devices, you can send your submission to mobilenews-source@google.com

Google News Alerts
Here is what Google has to say, followed by my comments:
“In order for a site to be included in Google News Alerts, a couple of things have to happen. First, the site needs to be included in Google News. To see if the site is included in Google News, use our “site:” operator. Simply type [ site:url.com ] into the search box and click “Search News.” For example, to search for Lemur News, you’d type [ site:lemurnews.com ] into the Search Box. Second, the article (the specific article being sent out in the news alert) needs to make it into the top ten Google News results for a particular search term (the term that triggers the email alert). For example, if an article appears in the top ten Google News results for the search term [ primate ], then anyone who’s signed up for the News Alert [ primate ] will receive that article (along with the nine other articles in the top ten).”

My comments:
Google doesn’t want to comment on the second criterion. I have observed that articles with keywords in their titles are more often selected. It is logical, though speculative, that Google will consider news more newsworthy if an article is linked from the homepage.

News Archive Results
Historical news content (available for free or by subscription) can submitted for inclusion in the News Archive Search (http://news.google.com/support/archivesearch/).

Image Results
The best way to get images in Google’s index is to opt-in to the enhanced image search program (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=48367),
which is in Google Webmaster Tools.

Google has an “Image Labeler”, which is less of a technology than a means of having humans tag images. Your submitted images will be served randomly to users, who will tag the image with keywords. Based on matching criteria, Google will identify and serve the most popular tags.

One last note about images: avoid placing text in images. If you must, use accurate alt attributes. Do not keyword stuff.

Local Results
People like to search geo-specifically. It is valuable to be in the Local Results.

You do so by applying
(http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup?hl=en-US&gl=US). Google verifies your physical presence by sending you a postcard with instructions for verification.

Video Results
Everyone is talking about getting video into Google.
The misconception that abounds is that Google will find “tagged” videos on your site and include them in their index.

Google is only pulling videos from “trusted” video sites such as Google Video, YouTube, and Metacafe. They claim this is for copyright reasons.

When you upload your videos, make sure that descriptive keywords are used in its title.

Final Thoughts
Universal Search represents a significant change in Google’s index, however, marketers should scrutinize each Universal Search channel. It is easy for a new buzz channel to have allure, and therefore it is the marketers’ responsibility to approach Universal Search with reason and not emotional exuberance.

by Ben Kou, Account Manager

Whether you’re an Armageddon scholar or not, you can’t help but notice that the price of gas keeps climbing, Vladimir Putin is sending submarines to claim the North Pole, and China is slowly kicking America’s butt economically. Throw in some radical Middle Eastern terrorist groups and it’s not completely absurd to imagine all these elements fomenting another world war over the most precious resource on the planet – oil.

In fact, such a scenario is so easy to imagine that THQ built their latest first-person shooter, Frontlines: Fuel of War, on this exact premise. It’s the Red Star Alliance (China, Russia and a handful of former Soviet States) against the Western Alliance (read – US, England, and Europe) in another war to end all wars.

What does Red Bricks Media have to do with all this? In order to build interest in advance of the official release of Frontlines: Fuel of War, THQ contracted Red Bricks Media to concept, design and manage an alternate reality game allowing players to experience the frontlines of tomorrow, today.

After signing up to play at http://www.exeoinc.com, players become involved in an online search to uncover just how another world war could come to fruition. After reading blogs, discovering secret YouTube channels, befriending characters on Facebook and phoning in covert rescue missions, players discover the who, what, where and when in the world of Frontlines: Fuel of War.

“We wanted people to interact with real online channels like Facebook, Flickr and Google search in order to feel like all this is really happening, that there is a real Exeo Incorporated out there developing futuristic weapons and peak oil research and selling it to the highest bidder,” related Red Bricks Media CEO, Ed Kim.

Red Bricks Media upped the reality factor by using paid search as the backbone of the campaign. “You might be searching for real world news, say things like ‘North Pole oil reserve’ and you would come across one of Exeo Incorporated’s ads and click on it thinking it was real. Almost immediately, you become aware that something’s not right,” noted Media Director Andrew Leinicke. “It’s all just part of the game.”

Even fictitious characters in the Frontlines: Fuel of War game get in on the action. War journalist Wayne Andrews has his own blog on Wordpress (www.wayneandrews.wordpress.com) which describes his mysterious disappearance after discovering a secret Exeo Incorporated facility in the deserts of Iraq.

“I kind of feel like Orson Welles reading War of the Worlds over the radio,” said copywriter Peter Vaughan. “I hope people don’t get too freaked out by all this, but at the same time I think we all wanted to create a concept that would raise some eyebrows.”

To get in on the Countdown to War action, visit http://www.exeoinc.com – but remember, it’s only a game.

by Kelly Olson, VP Accounting and Finance

By now you’ve probably heard of the recent major milestones Google has achieved, including being selected as the world’s most admired brand, surpassing Microsoft as the world’s most visited website, and attaining a market capitalization larger than that of IBM. Another milestone of sorts has been Google’s ability to scare a surprisingly large number of industries including: advertising, entertainment, publishers, computer hardware and software manufacturers, and telecoms. And yes, they’ve even managed at times to make enterprising little startups like us uneasy. Each quarter the Red Bricks Media management team meets to review our business performance and refine our strategy. As part of our meeting we review our threats, and, as many other companies have done, Google has definitely made our list. So while some companies have responded by suing (e.g. Viacom) or others by seeking government intervention (ironically MSN & AT&T!); we thought we’d take a much less aggressive approach and turn the tables a little bit by speculating on what Google views as its top threats. For just as IBM dominated the 80’s and Microsoft the 90’s, so to may Google face a day when its meteoric rise plateaus.

So what causes Google CEO Eric Schmidt to lose sleep at night? What causes Sergei and Larry to toss and turn in restless slumber? Here then, without further ado, are the top 5 threats to Google’s dominance.

5. Peer Search

Is Google worried about peer search? This is where people or experts rank search results to provide more interesting and relevant results than an algorithm can yet provide. Maybe a year ago this type of search worried Google. This was when Yahoo acquired del.icio.us (that’s a pain to write by the way) and Flickr (for photos). Heralded by many as the next way to search, neither has seemed to do much to help Yahoo shore up their eroding search market share. The problem with this model is that most people don’t have the time to invest in rating their search results. We want the results to our search inquiry fast, and we want it now, and Google continues to best facilitate this motive, which is why they are probably not too concerned with peer search.

4. Other Search Engines

So does Eric Schmidt lose much sleep at night because of other search engines? Nah, probably not. Like any good executive you should never underestimate your competition, however, from their recent track record Yahoo and MSN have not done anything to show they’re going to soon be grabbing search market share back from Google (and lest we forget, Yahoo had around 31.8% of the search market at the beginning of 2006, now down to 26.8% as reported by Comscore). Perhaps Google should be most concerned with new search engines that promise to improve the search experience. One potentially exciting example is Powerset. This startup has gotten some significant investors lined up behind it and claims to dramatically improve search with their yet to be launched natural search algorithm. Still, it’s tough to see that any startups would scare Google that much. Google can always buy any of these engines that start to get too big.

3. Microsoft and Yahoo Merger

Like a couple of 800 pound gorillas courting each other, Microsoft and Yahoo have made overtures that they at some point might merge. The question is whether there is a strong business case for the merger, or if these discussions are more driven by fear of Google. If neither Yahoo nor MSN has demonstrated they are good at search, what’s to suggest that they will get it figured out together? Combine two lab technicians and you still don’t get a rocket scientist. Yet the threat of MSN suddenly getting Yahoo’s 26.8% search share, combined with the significant cash they are sitting on must make Google uneasy.

2. Content

Obviously this is a big one and is why Google purchased You Tube. But was this the best strategy for Google to get its hand on content? Recent developments such as Viacom’s lawsuit suggest the answer may be no. The issue for Google is how it will monetize the content on You Tube. The easiest strategy is to charge for downloads or through user subscriptions, but without access to proprietary content, how does Google get people to pay to see the latest amateur video? Would you pay to see someone with great dance moves perform at a junior high talent show (the most viewed video of all time on You Tube)? Certainly Google gets an amazing amount of eyeballs through the site, but monetizing these with banner ads certainly won’t contribute much to the bottom line. And, an even bigger threat to Google from content, and what should make Google even more nervous, is that someone such as Yahoo or Wikipedia will figure out how to leverage the visitors that come to their site for content to stay for search as well. And if this happens Google’s search market share could start to drop dramatically–a serious threat to their future growth.

1. Lack of Revenue Diversification and Loss of Focus

You may recognize the story of a startup company that with disruptive technology grew to a monstrous size and in the process scared the pants off its competitors, triggered lawsuits for their monopolistic behavior, developed huge cash reserves and decided to try all different types of new business endeavors to help derive a return from these assets? If you said Microsoft, of course you’re right, and if you’ve checked their stock price recently it is basically flat since 2001. Why is it flat? Because many of the endeavors outside of their core business of software have not been profitable. By focusing on too many, non-profitable strategies, will Google follow Microsoft’s path? As we saw with Web 1.0, ventures that get money for free tend to not do a good job of creating revenue from that money. And it appears from Google’s 2006 10k filing that about 99% percent of its revenue still comes from search. So while Madison Avenue, Hollywood and other industries are all running scared, Google has not made much in the way of inroads into these other verticals. The question is then, as the search market matures, will Google’s new ventures become an unprofitable distraction from their core specialty of search or will they in fact be able to diversify their business into these other arenas? The failure to convert their home run in the search space into other profitable ventures is the biggest threat faced by Google, and hopefully, given all the other executives losing sleep because of Google, has contributed to some restless nights for Google’s own management team.

by Craig Hordlow, Chief Search Strategist

Google recently declared war, and when a company as powerful as Google declares war, it is a cause for alarm.

Google declared war on the buying and selling of text links that affect Google search results.

In order to understand Google’s war motive, one must understand the basics of Google’s ranking algorithm.

An important, if not essential, component to an SEO (search engine optimization) campaign (for many, but not all, websites) is the acquisition of external links. Google ranks websites largely based on Larry Page’s (Google co-founder) “PageRank” algorithm, which assigns a value (1 to 10) to a webpage. Google defines PageRank as the “measure of importance” of a webpage, 10 being perfect. The higher the PageRank, the more likely a webpage will rank well for relevant keywords. (You can see your PageRank by installing the Google Toolbar.

Simplistically stated, a Google PageRank score is determined by the number of links pointing to a website. Therefore, the more links, the better.

Search engine marketers, aware of the value of links, seek to acquire links through a variety of tactics, ranking from press releases, link trades, to link purchases.

Perhaps the easiest way to acquire links is by purchasing them. Link brokers have built lucrative businesses by creating a marketplace for buyers and sellers. A serendipitous, unconscious, and charming contribution these brokers make is that they enable revenue for virtually anyone with a website. Publishers such as small town and college newspapers, non-profits, and bloggers, suddenly found themselves generating a reliable and comfortable monthly income.

These purchased links work. Smart link purchases result in higher search engine ranking, and this fact, once only an irritation to Google, has grown into a serious threat that Google is now determined to combat (see http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/ for more details).

Google is determined to solve the problem algorithmically, meaning, it wants its robots to be able to identify purchased links (rather than manually policing the trade). Purchased links are often times published in square boxes in list form, sometimes even incriminatingly labeled as “sponsors”. Google is crafting its algorithm to detect these kinds of “fingerprints”.

And as Google evolves its ability to identify and disqualify purchased links, link brokers are also evolving their tactics of masking paid links by re-formatting the manner in which the links are published.

So what does a search engine marketer intent on buying links need to know?

If you are going to buy links (which I must say is considered an ethical dilemma by some, but addressed in an upcoming newsletter!), you need to be aware of the factors that Google is likely evaluate in order to identify paid links. Here is a short list:
* Site wide links
* Links published in a list format (“block level analysis”)
* Links that are labeled (in text) as “sponsored”
* Links that have a link back to the link broker
* Links on sites that are publicly listed on link broker websites

Link purchases need to be tested. Marketers buying links must benchmark their ranking before their link purchase.

Once the benchmark has been established, it is wise to buy links in small increments.

Here’s an example.

Your website ranks #14 for the term “enterprise gold widget”.

You evaluate the PageRank, onsite optimization, and incoming links to the top ranking sites (let’s not open that can of worms) and decide to spend $800 / month on links. You make the purchase, and within 3 weeks, you are ranking #6.

You increase the monthly spend to $1200. Your site is now ranking #4. You keep incrementally adding budget until you are number one (and, obviously, you must be sure that the value of resulting traffic exceeds your spend. I’ll discuss this in another newsletter post).

Buying links is an evolving art form. This is a battle between thousands of brilliant PhD’s at Google and search engine marketers.
One should not dabble in the practice, and link buyers must be tracking the efficacy of their purchase like a day trader tracks the movement of their stock investments.

The last paragraph should cause you to ask yourself a question:

“If I am in some kind of battle with Google, is this bad? Is this unethical? Do I really want to do this?”

I am going to address those issues in the next newsletter, but I will leave you with one last comment:

The irony that Google is generating billions of dollars by selling text links, and trying to control others who do the same is not lost on the SEM community. I will write about that in my next newsletter: (“The Hubris of Google”).

Stay tuned for…
* The Hubris of Google & the Ethics of Buying Links
* Using Analytics to Determine ROI by Organic KW
* Getting More Out of Your #1 Ranking
* Inside of Google’s Algorithm

By Craig Hordlow, Chief Search Strategist

This is the time of the year when people reflect on the past and make predictions for the future.

Those in the Internet world are aware that we are in “Web 2.0”. I’m going to quickly discuss the characteristics of Web 2.0 and then make predictions about Web 3.0.

From a business point of view, Web 2.0 is characterized by an economic resurgence fueled by long-tail principles. Web 2.0 services include wiki, social networking, communication tools, folksonomies (online collaboration), and tagging, whereas the Web 1.0 generation is generally perceived as being more static HTML.

But what might Web 3.0 look like, and what does it mean for search engine marketers?

I believe that Web 3.0 will start when bandwidth and wifi are so abundant and plentiful that we see the convergence of television, cell phones, and computers. A whole new world of applications that bridge these devices will be readily adopted, and it’s the adoption that will characterize Web 3.0.

Google’s brokering of print, radio, television and cell phone ads will be mature. Google will only have about 15% of its products in Beta. The boundaries between traditional and non-traditional media will be blurred. Marketers will not necessarily differentiate between their Internet and offline marketing budgets.

Here is the list:

• More bandwidth: Netflix and cable companies will stream movies into living rooms
• Free wireless: cities will provide free wireless
• Convergence of devices: with the bandwidth and wifi infrastructure, cell phones and televisions will be a more seamless extension of the Web
• Emergence of devices: wifi phones, portable Internet music & video players will become prevalent
• Convergence of industries: with the convergence of devices, we will see television, cable, and Internet companies in a market grab
• Online storage and subscription services will quickly replace client side storage and download-only business models. iTunes users will feel silly paying $1/song (that’s $10,000 for 10,000 songs) to download music when streaming services, enabled by omnipresent wifi and robust bandwidth, offer a far better deal. Streaming services like Rhapsody and Yahoo Music which currently make millions of songs available for about $8 / month, will kill the download model.
• Vertical evolution. Search phrases such as “I need a rental car next weekend in downtown Chicago, and a hotel for less than $200 per day, and I am traveling with a dog and my blind aunt” will return results that will have users about 1 click away from booking this package. On their cell phones.
• Google will be at last monetizing video and traditional media, including YouTube, cell phones, print ads, and free wireless in cities.
• Google will integrate their current link-based algorithm with click behavior. They will be able to do this after years of Windows computers shipping with the Google Toolbar pre-installed. Regarding the Google Toolbar, imagine a biologist tagging migrating whales with listening devices. That is what Google is doing NOW to most Windows computers that ship.
• F1000 companies will, for the most part, have evolved their internal change processes so that they can adopt sophisticated SEM techniques with less internal bureaucratic resistance
• A full length movie will be made about Craigslist. Jason Alexandar will play Craig Newmark.
• Encouraged by their success invading privacy with their toolbar, Google will begin buying satellites and giving away free hearing aids to an older generation that has embraced technology.

What do you think? Well, for those in search engine marketing, you can do more than just think about…

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it”, Alan Kay, computer scientist, 1971.