Google Finally Cracks Down on Content Farms

Google used their Official Google Blog to announce a change to their search algorithm that impacts 11.8% of their queries. Google explains:
"This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."
Google's announcement is a followup to what Matt Cutts stated in his blog just over a month ago:
"And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content. We’ll continue to explore ways to reduce spam, including new ways for users to give more explicit feedback about spammy and low-quality sites. 
As “pure webspam” has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to “content farms,” which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content."
Google notes that this update does not utilize the new data they are receiving from the "Personal Data Chrome extension" that they launched just last week. However, they are "very pleased" to report that 84% of the top several dozen domains reported to be blocked by the extension are also impacted by the algorithm change. This could be very bad news for the high profile eHow.com because it is routinely referred to in the media as a site with lots of low quality content. If people are voting via Chrome it's likely they are one of the top domains Google is referring to.
However, our own small batch of test searches at WebProNews does not show any negative changes for eHow. For instance, eHow still ranks number one in Google results for "level four brain cancer", the same as we earlier reported. WebProNews will be further reviewing the impact of this change on eHow and other mass content producers over the next few days. Additionally, Google states in their posting that, "We’re working on many more updates that we believe will substantially improve the quality of the pages in our results". 

The message to content producers is clear, publish shallow content that is obviously SEO'd and disliked by users and eventually you won't be rewarded by Google's search engine.

About the author:
Rich Ord is the CEO and founder of iEntry, Inc. which includes WebProNews, Twellow, WebProWorld and numerous other B2B blogs and Internet communities.
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/25/google-finally-cracks-down-on-content-farms

Apparently, No One Likes Mobile Device Users

While we may be a nation of mobile device users -- largely, anyway -- it’s clear almost no one is using their device in a respectful, concerned-for-others manner.  What’s worse is, even if a large majority of users knows mobile device user behavior is largely inconsiderate, it doesn’t stop them from acting the same way when they’re using their own devices.
Such are some of the findings from a recent Intel study over this very topic: Mobile Technology Etiquette 2011. Most, if not all of Intel’s findings are either A. not surprising, or B. obvious when you observe others using their mobile toys.
The biggest issue concerning mobile device etiquette is a distinct lack thereof. Some of the findings (pdf) include:

- Nearly all U.S. adults (91 percent) have seen someone using their mobile device in an unusual place. The most common locations include behind the wheel (56 percent), in a Public restroom (48 percent), in a movie theater (32 percent) and on a honeymoon (9 percent).

- The majority of U.S. adults (76 percent) say that if they had to choose, they would give up something other than their mobile Internet-enabled device for 1 week.

- Seventy-four percent of U.S. adults believe that poor mobile etiquette has created a new form of public rage/violence, much like road rage

- Sixty-five percent admit becoming angry around people misusing their mobile devices inappropriately.

All interesting facts and figures, but perhaps the most informative part came when 92 percent of the respondents wished people would use better etiquette when using a mobile device.  While this sounds like a reasonable request, when contrasted with this tidbit of data:
“Eighty-eight percent of U.S. adults agree that people rarely take others into consideration when using their mobile devices in public”

You get the feeling the war for mobile device etiquette has already been lost, no matter how many suggestions Anna Post offers.  For instance, tips like the following are clearly lost on today’s mobile device user:

“The solution is two fold. First, manage your time and other’s expectations, no matter how easy the technology makes it to respond immediately. You can return a call instead of answering, wait to answer a text, or excuse yourself for a minute to check email. Better yet, don’t keep a mobile device handy when you know you shouldn’t answer it. In a meeting? Put your laptop lid down. Better yet, keep your mobile devices in your handbag, briefcase or pocket.”

A reaction consisting of “yeah, right” comes to mind, especially when it comes to the almost-extinct ideas of consideration and respect for others.  Throw a mobile device into the mix and it’s clear Post’s considerable writing ability would be better spent developing step-by-step guides for watching paint dry and lawn mower usage.

About the author:
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news. 
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/25/apparently-no-one-likes-mobile-device-users

Bing Spreads Facebook "Liked Results"

People who use both Facebook and Bing should soon become more familiar than ever with the concept of "social search."  The integration of Facebook "Likes" into Bing's results is continuing so that searchers can see which sites have earned their friends' approval.

A post on the Bing Search Blog explained this morning, "A few months ago, we announced an exciting partnership with Facebook to make search more social.  As part of that work, we introduced Liked Results, which promotes links your friends have publicly liked or shared via Facebook.  Today we are extending Liked Results to annotate any of the URLs returned by our algorithmic search results to all users in the US."

So here's the bottom line: "If your friends have publicly liked or shared any of the algorithmic search results shown on Bing, we will now surface them right below the result."
Of course, this development calls into question whether you trust the opinions of your friends more than those of professional reviewers, but that's a problem for individuals, not Bing, to resolve.  The initial "cool" factor of seeing that your friends liked a certain search result is considerable, regardless.

Indeed, it's not hard to imagine that more people will now give Bing a try, at least when conducting certain types of searches (for restaurants or bands, maybe).  Google and Yahoo don't have anything that can really compare to the "Liked Results" feature.

The Bing blog post promised that additional changes are on the way, as well, so something even more interesting related to Facebook and social search may be introduced in the near-ish future.

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news. 
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/24/bing-spreads-facebook-liked-results

MyBlogLog Coming to An End

Yahoo is shutting down MyBlogLog, a service acquired by the company a few years ago, that lets you see who's been visiting your blog. It's been known for quite some time that it would happen, but users received an email today setting the date. It said: 

You have been identified as a customer of Yahoo! MyBlogLog. We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. Your agreement with Yahoo!, to the extent that it applies to the Yahoo! MyBlogLog, will terminate on May 24, 2011.

After May 24, 2011 your credit card will no longer be charged for premium services on MyBlogLog. We will refund you the unused portion of your subscription, if any. The refund will appear as a credit via the billing method we have on file for you. To make sure that your billing information is correct and up to date, visit https://billing.yahoo.com.

Cloudspace developed MyBlogLog in 2005, and in early 2007, it was acquired by Yahoo for over 10 million dollars.

 


Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/24/mybloglog-coming-to-an-end

Fashion Brands Using Facebook To Best Effect

Lots of companies have a strong presence on Facebook, with Chipotle, Ford, and NBC all making significant moves just this week.  But when it comes to effective marketing in the UK, new data from Experian Hitwise indicates that fashion brands know how to use Facebook best.

Robin Goad, who shared that finding in a corporate blog post earlier today, arrived at it by examining which sites people search for after leaving Facebook.  Then he "created an Index score which measures searches for a brand after Facebook compared to searches for a brand in All Categories."

You can see the results for yourself below, and Goad explained, "An Index score of 100 would be an average, but any score over 100 indicates that a brand is getting a much higher proportion of its searches after a visit to Facebook than it does in normal search."
Not familiar with those names?  Jack Wills, Republic, Topman, Topshop, River Island, Asos, Miss Selfridge, and New Look all make or sell clothing.  (Play.com deals in CDs, DVDs, books, and the like.)

Marketers should take a close look at how fashion brands build up and interact with their audiences on Facebook, then.  Perhaps not every tactic will be applicable elsewhere, but it looks like everyone has plenty to learn.


About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news. 
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/24/fashion-brands-using-facebook-to-best-effect

Social Media: More than Twitter and Facebook? Uh, yeah.

The following post is based on a discussion at the Cincinnati Social Media LinkedIn Group.

In what seems to be a race to oversimplify EVERYTHING, we're creating misdefinitions. In many cases there's simply (a lot) more to the story.

Social media provides the latest example. Do you know anyone with "T&F Tunnel Vision?" This unfortunate condition involves the assumption that the social media landscape starts and ends with Twitter and Facebook.
I've ranted about this before -- more than a few times. And I'm taking this well-worn soapbox with me down to SXSW for a panel discussion I'm on with David Binkowski and Krista Neher about influencers. Simple math shows the folly in T&F Tunnel Vision and Geoff Livingston deconstructs Twitter in a recent post.

Recently I was reminded about an uber-important site for any local strategy -- Yelp.

Think Local, Act Social (with Yelp)
Alex Shebar and I connected recently so I could get up to speed on his role as Yelp's Cincinnati community manager as well as some functionality to the site of which I was unaware. I've used Yelp before. But until recently I had not visited frequently/regularly.

It's safe to say I'm a minority in Cincinnati. Ohio has community managers in three cities: Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. That's rare and speaks to our level of activity on the site. States larger than ours have only one manager in one city.

Yelp became a bigger focus for me when looking at how small businesses are using social media. In a recent presentation, I spent more time discussing Yelp than I did Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. It's because small businesses stand to benefit by focusing their time and effort on Yelp.

Word of Mouth "is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions" per NM Incite. And Yelp's community is just that. It's tagline is "real people. real reviews." Search is the place to start to determine where your customers are talking about your brand. And these reviews can impact search results in a big way. So even if your customers aren't hitting Yelp, they might be reading the reviews via search results.

Yelp 101
So what can businesses do to step up their Yelp presence? Alex gave me two links as the perfect examples.

** Business Owner's Guide to Yelp: This section of the site shows you how to claim your page, respond to reviews and even buy ads. It lays it out step by step.

** Check-In Offers: This is similar to checking in on Foursquare, but focused more on easily-customized customer incentives. "It provides a measurable way to reward your most loyal customers while attracting new ones."

Based on the type of business, Yelp can be a valuable tool for building word of mouth. You should check and see where your company/your clients shake out. And if you have a great experience retail, food, drink or otherwise? Spread the word on Yelp.

As Alex noted in our conversation, "if you find yourself sitting at home complaining that there's nothing to do, you have no excuse. There's plenty to do. You just need a site to help you find it."
Driving Miss Social Media

Everyone wants a dependable car that gives them no problems, performs well and gets the job done. But everyone wants to be seen in the sports car that's getting a tune up as much as it's parking a mile from the building so no one scratches the paint job.

Did I just call Twitter a Ferrari and Yelp a Honda Accord? I'm being dramatic to make a point. But, yeah, there are popular sites and their are relevant sites. Relevant sites are different for every brand and for every customer segment. Relevance wins.

I think I just named a new line of cars. Make check payable to...

---
Full disclosure: I decided to create this post after the discussion with Alex and due to my recent focus on the site. I did not "unlock any offers" by doing so. In fact, I had to bug Alex to send me the links.

About the author:
Kevin Dugan is the author of the popular Strategic Public Relations blog. Kevin is Director of Marketing Communications for FRCH Design Worldwide.
Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/24/social-media-more-than-twitter-and-facebook-uh-yeah

How Much is a Tweet or a Like Worth to You?

ChompOn has released some interesting findings (pdf) related to social media sharing and its value to e-commerce. Specifically, the firm sought out to answer the question: "What is the value of a social action in online commerce?" 

What they came up with is that a Facebook Share was worth $14, a Facebook "like" was worth $8, a tweet was worth $5, and a Twitter follow was worth $2.

"Admittedly, we believe the true value for likes and follows to be much higher due to creation of long-term loyalty," says ChompOn. "Additionally, it is not possible to directly attribute traffic from these actions so it was necessary to estimate.



Obviously, you have to take into account their methodology, which is where that estimation factor comes in. 

"For shares and tweets, we were able to directly attribute sales to the original action, so we simply took the total revenue attributed to each action and divided it by the total number of shares/tweets," the firm says. "For likes and follows, we had to estimate attribution by looking at our traffic references and subtracting out purchases made through shares/tweets as well as purchases made through direct traffic."

ChompOn is also careful to point out that gross revenue depends on the products and services being offered. 

In reality, you may find a greater dollar value in all of these social interactions, or you may find now dollar value at all. There are a lot of potential variables to consider, but if nothing else, it shows that you can indeed place a dollar value on a tweet, on a "like", etc. 

That's really the moral of the story. Many complaints have been voiced about a lack of measurable ROI when it comes to social media. If you have this complaint, it may be time to re-evaluate your measuring strategies.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

 Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/18/how-much-is-a-tweet-or-a-like-worth-to-you

Facebook Continues to Improve in Search

I wrote an article a couple months ago, asking: What if Facebook goes search while Google struggles to go social? I looked at some of the things Facebook has done related to search, and made the case that the social networking giant has a lot of potential for becoming a bigger player in search in general. 

Now, they're making more adjustments to Facebook's internal search feature, which make it more useful. They've started separating the results that appear automatically into different sections. This includes things like: People, Pages, Apps, Groups, Shared Links, etc.
Google is in the process of rolling out a significant update to its social search feature, throwing social results into the mix (as opposed to separate at the bottom of the SERP). A glaring hole in Google's offering, however, is a lack of Facebook data - arguably the most important social data there is, given that Facebook has so many more users than any other social network. It would be nice to see articles "liked" and shared by Facebook friends in Google's results (luckily Wajam adds some Facebook data to your Google results if you install a browser extension). 

Last fall, Facebook started adding "liked" articles to the search results. "Consistent with how we treat other Open Graph object types, we’ve introduced the ability to see articles shared by your friends in the search typeahead," said Facebook's Namita Gupta.  "For instance, if your friend clicks 'Like' on an article at a news site, the article will appear in your News Feed and can now also surface in the search typeahead."

Now, with "shared Links" they're organized better, and often appear above other results.

Facebook has the strongest collection of person-to-person interactions on the entire web. You'd be hard pressed to find many authoritative sites that don't have some kind of Facebook integration, even if it's just "like" buttons. As long as Google doesn't provides this information in search results, it's never going to be as good as it could be. 

This is one reason why Facebook is a potentially dangerous opponent of Google's. To reiterate points made in my previous article, it's not that far-fetched to see Facebook put more emphasis on search the way Twitter did, and Facebook already uses Bing for web results, and could easily fill in the gaps with those results. Bing has no qualms about supplying search results to other major search engines through the back-end (see Yahoo deal). What if Facebook just became a real search engine competitor - instantly personalized, with some sections powered by Bing. They've already pushed for users to make Facebook their home page. 

Let's also not forget that Facebook recently acquired search company Chai Labs (founded by a former Google exec), and has stolen many Google employees away.  Also remember that Facebook has also been encouraging the addition of different types of information to be added to its internal network with things like Facebook Questions and Wikipedia-like community pages. In time, Facebook Places (combined with Bing Mpas) could evolve to power some powerful local results too.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/22/facebook-continues-to-improve-in-search 

Social Media Killing Blogs...Here We Go Again.

Here we go again with another one of those silly social media vs. blogs debates. The New York Times stirred the pot this time with an article called, "Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter."

"Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter," writes Verne G. Kopytoff. "They are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation."

This idea that blogs are dying has been around practically as long as either Facebook or Twitter, and it almost always gets dismissed as a ridiculous notion.

Wordpress founding developer Matt Mullenweg took some issue with the piece: "The title was probably written by an editor, not the author, because as soon as the article gets past the two token teenagers who tumble and Facebook instead of blogging, the stats show all the major blogging services growing — even Blogger whose global 'unique visitors rose 9 percent, to 323 million,' meaning it grew about 6 Foursquares last year alone. (In the same timeframe WordPress.com grew about 80 million uniques according to Quantcast.)"

In fact, in 2010, Wordpress had over 6 million new blogs created in 2010, and pageviews were up by 53%.



"Blogging has legs — it's been growing now for more than a decade, but it's not a 'new thing' anymore," says Mullenweg. "Underneath the data in the article there's an interesting super-trend that the Times misses: people of all ages are becoming more and more comfortable publishing online."

Major web content forces like AOL and Demand Media recognize the power of blogs. AOL is buying them, and Demand recently launched a blog syndication program. 

As is established every time this debate comes up, blogging and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter complement one another. End of story. Without blogs, people would have less interesting content to share on Facebook and Twitter. Without Facebook and Twitter, bloggers would have a harder time getting the readers. 

Kopytoff does make a critical point, however. The lines aren't always crystal clear about what is truly "blogging" and what isn't. Even Twitter use is often called "microblogging". 

"The blurring of lines is readily apparent among users of Tumblr," says Kopytoff. "Although Tumblr calls itself a blogging service, many of its users are unaware of the description and do not consider themselves bloggers — raising the possibility that the decline in blogging by the younger generation is merely a semantic issue."

People blog on Facebook all the time too. They call them "notes". No matter where it's happening, blogging is not going away. You can call it what you want, but people will continue to put their thoughts into words and publish them online. Sometimes, they'll even do it in more than 140 characters. Some people even think Twitter should expand their character limit.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237 

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/21/social-media-killing-blogshere-we-go-again

Facebook Chat In Hotmail Goes Live Worldwide

Five months ago, Microsoft announced that Hotmail users in Brazil, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. could begin to chat with their Facebook friends while checking their email.  Now the integration of Hotmail and Facebook Chat is complete in every place where Facebook is available.

We'll admit: this may not sound like a big deal insofar as it's pretty simple to toggle between a Hotmail tab and a Facebook tab.  But the development at least goes to show that relations between Microsoft and Facebook are as good as ever.

Also, a slight increase in usability is something, and the change could come in handy when access to Facebook is restricted (by employers, for example).

Finally, a post on the Inside Windows Live blog pointed out, "Since announcing the availability of Facebook chat in Messenger worldwide two weeks ago, nearly 2.5 more million people connected their Facebook accounts to Windows Live, bringing the total to over 20 million customers.  And with three out of four Hotmail customers using Facebook, we expect that many more people will want to take advantage of this feature . . ."
So if you're interested, the post later suggested, "[F]irst connect your Facebook account to Windows Live and make sure the 'Chat with my Facebook friends in Messenger' box is checked to give your consent to Facebook.  We'll link your accounts (this may take a few minutes), and you can start a chat from Hotmail just by clicking on the name of a Facebook contact.  If this doesn't work right away, sign out and back in again, and you should be good to go."

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news. 

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2011/02/21/facebook-chat-in-hotmail-goes-live-worldwide