Archive for December, 2009

A new technology in development by Cisco Systems could provide additional refinements for search engine optimization (SEO) by helping to improve the web crawlers that the major engines use to index pages.

The new technology would use “routers, multilayer switches, and any other suitable device” to capture the URLs of websites that traditional web crawlers may be unable to access because they are unconnected to the crawler’s previously known network of sites. The patent was originally filed last year, but was published by the U.S. patent office on December 17.

BNet describes the technology as an “elegant solution” to one of the central problems with traditional web crawlers. “Any page receiving any amount of traffic would seem to be one whose location should be known,” writes Erik Sherman on that website.

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals should be aware of the possible implications of the Cisco technology, which could have an effect on their carefully crafted SEO campaigns, experts say. Some speculate that the technology could improve the comprehensiveness of search engine results.

Good news for users of the popular WordPress blogging platform: WordPress 2.9 has arrived, and it includes some major new features that make blogging easier, as well as hundreds of under-the-hood improvements to important stuff like databases and SEO. The most visible new features are a built-in image editor, a much easier way to embed video, a better plug-in updater, and a trash for your deleted posts and files.

The image editor allows you to resize, crop, flip or rotate your images from within WordPress, which makes fitting your image into a post a whole lot easier. Sometimes it’s just not worth opening Photoshop for those quick adjustments. On the video front, you can now paste a URL from any of several major video sites (including YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr and Google Video) and WordPress will recognize and embed the video automatically.

The new plug-in updater does batch updates, so you can install the latest version of up to 10 plug-ins at once. Previously, you had to click each one individually, which was tedious for people with lots of gadgets installed. The new updater also automatically checks to make sure a plug-in is compatible with your WordPress install, so you don’t have to fear something mysteriously breaking when you do an update.

Trash seems like something WordPress should have included a long time ago. Now instead of asking whether you really want to delete that post or file, WordPress will just move it to the new trash, where it can be recovered if you change your mind. It’s a simple feature, but I think it will avert a lot of data loss catastrophes and save a lot of hassle.

All in all, WordPress 2.9 looks like a major improvement, and it should make your blogging life easier and more productive.

Foundering search giant Yahoo is said to be looking to offload its “Hot Jobs” employment listing service for “the right price” in the wake of declining search performance and a pending deal with Microsoft to have that company’s Bing search engine take over search functions on Yahoo’s still-popular internet portal.

Reuters reports that company insiders say that Hot Jobs – in addition to Yahoo’s Small Business unit – was on the block for a hoped-for fee of anywhere between $350 million and $500 million.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, speaking at an investor’s conference earlier this week, joked that Yahoo owed a great debt to Tiger Woods for the revelations about the golfer’s personal life that spiked search traffic across the internet. She also confirmed that Hot Jobs was not central to the company’s strategic vision moving forward and could be sold.

Bartz also blamed the company’s declining search numbers – and consequent diminution of relevance to the search engine optimization (SEO) market – on the failure of toolbar deals with HP and Acer that would have seen Yahoo toolbars pre-installed on PCs manufactured by those companies.

Specific queries, for which the competition is less fierce in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), can drive truly impressive conversion rates, according to Search Engine Land columnist Eric Enge.

Enge writes that, despite the fact that the benefits of long tail search engine optimization (SEO) having been obvious for years, many clients are still unaware of the potential upside to targeting highly specialized queries. He uses the example of a camera retailer, which, by tailoring SEO to specific camera makes and models, brings in more customers who are ready to purchase their products.

The basic assumptions from which Enge works in making his assertions is that roughly 70 percent of search traffic comes from the long tail, 20 percent from what Enge calls the “chunky middle,” and only 10 percent from competitive “head” search terms. The latter can be useful for driving traffic, but conversion rates are usually low, and the investment is frequently not worth it.

Seach engine optimization (SEO) campaigns that carefully target the long tail should see a spike in ROI, according to Enge and numerous other SEO experts.