Screwed: Is this an inevitability in the SEO World?

Microsoft and Yahoo just announced a 10 year pact for Microsoft to provide search results to Yahoo through their new being the search engine. This deal, while likely good for both parties, still does not close the gap enough to make Google sweat profusely.

The two have been doing a dance for roughly a year and a half, and just when it seemed like Yahoo was ready to get further into bed with Google, this deal finally gets sealed. Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88% of the revenue generated on Yahoo's sites, but they will not pay Yahoo any upfront money which is good for Microsoft as it attempts to close the gap on search market behemoth Google. Combining the two would give Microsoft's new Bing search engine roughly 30% of the search market which is a little over three times what it currently generates.

While it is too early to predict Bing's true competitive staying power, early opinions seem to suggest that it is a significant upgrade over MSN search and offers unique options to searchers looking for additional information when they conduct a search online.

For the search engine optimization (SEO) world, not a whole lot has changed (yet) because Microsoft's new search engine functions and operates somewhat similarly to that of Google. Link building, quality content, tagging, and user generated content (opinions, feedback, audio, videos, ratings, etc.) appear to carry a lot of weight just as they do with Google. That's not to suggest that Bing is trying to be a better Google, but with greater than 60% market share, would that be such a terrible strategy for Microsoft?

So what does this mean for your business? Well, it is another opportunity to attract new eyeballs especially if this deal creates momentum for the partnership while closing the gap on Google. It also means Google will likely take rapid action to counter this move which means searchers should benefit all the way around through more free content. Hopefully, for paid search advertisers, it provides respite from the dreaded "Google Slap" along with legitimate competition to decrease search marketing expenses. This could also provide an opportunity for organic SEO practitioners to carve out a niche by targeting Microsoft's new search engine as opposed to trying to reverse engineer Google's algorithm in an attempt to improve rankings. That said, the tenets of successful search optimization should remain your focus as a business owner and search engine marketer.

By about 2pm everyday, each of my team members has spoken to a good handful of

clients and potential clients who have been speaking with other SEO firms. This an

absolutely wonderful thing to see, as in the past in our industry, not enough of our

consumers were questioning what they were purchasing. It is a sign that

accountability will come and the bad guys will be weeded out.

While this is

a good sign, it's the cause of my having to answer the same questions over and

over. The consumers in the SEO world are being fed out and out lies by some of the

people who call themselves experts in the area of Search Engine Optimization. They

hear these lies and while comparing prices, contact us at Abalone Designs. They

then proceed to tell me everything that all of these other companies promised them

and I am utterly astonished. Here some of the most asinine claims I hear through

the grapevine.

"We can guarantee your rankings"

Don't be fooled! Ask the company what you will be ranking for,

immediately! 9 times out of 10, a company that guarantees you rankings, is

guaranteeing that you will rank for your own company name, which means people

on Google or MSN or Yahoo! would have to know your company name before

searching. How does this produce new customers and visitors to your site? Chances

are, as soon as these search engines index your site, you will rank within the top ten

for your company name, if not first, because it is unique. Why bother paying

someone for something that is already going to happen, anyway?

Guaranteeing rankings is highly unethical. It is impossible to guarantee

rankings unless you have access to Google's database itself, and even then I'm not

sure it's possible. Keep in mind, we are working with a 3rd party, here. A highly

guarded 3rd party that doesn't, under any circumstances, reveal it's secrets. No one

outside of the companies that run these search engines knows what it is exactly that

makes search engines rank sites high. Especially due to the fact that these search

engines and the rigorous ranking filters they use to spit out search results change

almost monthly. Even a former Google employee doesn't know how to guarantee

rankings! If someone is telling you they'll guarantee top rankings, run fast! Those

are some shady, shady claims. Google themselves have said:

"No one can

guarantee a #1 ranking on Google - Beware of SEO's that claim to guarantee

rankings, or that claim a "special relationship" with Google, or that claim to have a

"priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google.

5 Things to Keep an Eye on in the SEO World in 2005.

 First of all, what is SEO? It is an acronym for "Search engine optimization".

SEO is a science, of making your site rank higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Position). There are several factors, that influence your rank. First, and very important - internal site's structure. There are several rules, that have to be met - otherwise search engines will consider a site amateur/spammy/useless and index it badly (and in some cases might even completely drop it from their database).

After some of those rules are met - search engines apply another variable to the site's ranking - backlinks weight and count. Perhaps there are more factors, affecting site's ranking, but those are a very well kept secret (for those exactly same reasons - so that SEO people won't be able to affect site's "natural" score)

What are backlinks?

If site "A" has link to site "B" - we can say, that site "B" has a backlink from "A". If "A" is an authority site,it has more weight in search engine final decision about the rank position. The idea behind this mechanism, is that if site "A" refers to site "B", it probably considers it as a source of good information.

Of course, another logical conclusion is, the more backlinks site has - the better it will be ranked. Again, the idea is, that a lot of sites consider site "B" a trustful resource, and link to it. We can already say, that a good webmaster will take care of its site, organize it, make correct "title" tags, internal links structure and so on (internal optimization), and will then try to get more backlinks, so that his site will attract more users ("traffic") from search engines.

But what if you have a site, and now your goal is to rank higher? Or you are building a site, and what to know, how much effort will it take to be first in ranks? Or if you are a SEO freelancer, and need to decide the price for your job? Well, now you have to study your competition. I have made my mistakes, when initially going into SEO business, I just jumped inside, without thoroughly checking my competitors, and then heavily regretted it. This article gives you tips, on how to avoid those mistakes.

First, you have to see how many backlinks your competitors have. You can use any backlink checker tool to get a list of backlinks for a chosen site. Then you have to see how "big" (or "serious") your competitors are. The same above site allows you to see how many pages of this site Google has indexed (about 200 is medium site, >1000 is more or less professional, > 10000 - professional site, and most chances - tough ).

"PR" of a site - a score of 0..10, is very general estimation of the site by Google. It is no longer as important as it once was, but still, gives pretty good evaluation of the site's importance in the web. After this evaluation, you will have much better insight on your researched topic. You now realize how much effort and money your topic requires, and you can make your decision upon this.

After the latest PR update at Google and MSN's beta search going live, there is one

thing for certain in 2005: the world of search is in for some major changes. There

has been growing speculation around the SEO world that reciprocal linking is a thing

of the past. Rumors are abound that PR means less and less, if anything. Bill Gates

came out of his cave to say that "Today's search is nothing" and that it won't be that

way for long. There are quiet rumblings in the SEO back alleys of a new, state-of-

the-art search engine currently indexing the internet. Websites are dropping off the

face of the planet. And we're all left to sit here and put together the pieces. So what

is in store for 2005?

1) Reciprocal links, while not becoming totally dead, are decreasing in value, and

there will most likely be an algorithm update to lessen their importance. The

original thought process behind the importance of a link was that it was seen as a

"vote" for the linked-to site. Now that reciprocal links are everywhere, it is hardly a

great way to count "votes" for a website. Reciprocal linking will continue around the

internet, although the amount of people who try to get away with one-way links (by

never getting back to you once you've added their link) will increase significantly.

This will, of course, be an attempt to acquire one-way links, which brings us to our

next subject....

2) One-way links and triangle linking, though already quite popular, should explode

over the course of 2005. Both are much harder to control and acquire, which makes

Google happy. The triangle link "ploy" makes links look like one-way links even

though "Site A" is returning the favor to "Site B" through "Site C". There will be

attempts to sell triangle linking programs and systems by SEO companies, however,

the complexity, difficulty and time involved in this scheme will produce ridiculous

prices.

3) What this about a new search engine that is going to index every site on the

internet, EVERY 10 seconds? Become.com has turned a few heads with it's claims.

Site owners have reported Become Bots spidering "like crazy". It's all quite hush,

hush, however and you need to have an invite in order to test it out. It should be

interesting to see what they're capable of if and when they decide to go live. I'll go

out on a limb and say that it's a household name by this time next year.

4) MSN will scrap the "beta" tag on February 1st from it's sparkling new search

engine, which is currently live at search.msn.com and Bill Gates thinks it will rival

Google. There is a lot of debate over this issue, but there is no denying that it is far

better than the old chugger they were using before. Love him or hate him, Gates has

most likely given a hard right to the chin of Yahoo!, which seems to be suffering

from a magnitude of quality problems. MSN will be second to Google in total

searches in 2005.

5) PR still has importance. However, it is also decreasing in value. PR is only based

on the quantity and quality of links (both inbound and outbound) from the given

web page. The most obvious reasoning for the declining importance theory is due to

the fact that on any given search on Google, the PR of each page seems to have

barely any correlation with it's place in the rankings. For all you PR lovers out there,

hold on to your toolbar's tight, because this could be a bumpy ride.

How To Not Get Lost In The SEO World

This internet SEO thing has really taken off over the years and many people are becoming so called experts. Who is it for me to judge whether or not you should be taking advice from SEO-like people?

Many people are jumping on the band wagon of seo experts and they know absolutely nothing about seo. Most of them can only tell you they keywords needs to be in the title, and that's it.

You talk to other people they will tell you that the internet seo world is gone crazy, but I just think many people are starting to realize the important of it.

They are finally coming to realize you can only do so much with social marketing sites until they decide to kick you off and you become devastated because all your hard work is down the drain.

People and companies are deciding to catch this wave of online marketing of seo, and try to grow their business to new heights.

You may ask yourself why people are going so craze about seo, it's because it's the best way to market any business online without paying a dime for traffic.

Yes you may have to pay an company or individual for seo marketing services, but this will be an drop in the bucket for the potential of productivity your site will get throughout the seo process.

I will say seo marketing is vital to the survival of your site, if you choose to market your site any other way online...one you will lose money and time.

Time is something we can get back once it gone, so use it wisely by implementing this internet seo world of marketing. This will provide your site the backbone to out do the rest and compete with the big boys online.

Even though the seo world has gone crazy, it doesn't mean you should go crazy and not consider the internet seo marketing world part of your journey and become brandable online.

The ever-increasing level of competition in the Web these days is like a mad scramble for most businesses, with thousands of sites and affiliates boxing-out each other for niche markets, increased traffic, and higher sales.

Website and business owners who spend money on optimizing their websites in the search engines want to know they are getting a good return on their investments. SEO firms and experts need concrete numbers to show that the campaign is working, and that they should continue to invest in optimization.

According to the experts, there are several good reasons why you should measure your SEO efforts, so that you wouldn't go astray in terms of direction or investment. First, you need to justify how much you're spending to management, your client, or whoever holds you responsible for getting traffic to your website. Second, is to make sure that all the time and funds you're spending on SEO is actually working. Third, to enable you to secure more money for next year's SEO budget. And lastly, to enable you to stay competitive always.

It is also notable to take note that you should understand industry averages, such as how much the average website owner spends on outsourcing SEO, and this could range from $100 to $500 per web page for example, and what sort of return you can expect to receive for paying premium cash. In finding out these spending averages, you are fully equipped with the knowledge when formulating a plan that will convince yourself, or the higher-ups, to spend the money on SEO.

Tips On How Not To Get Lost In The SEO World

It is far better to get started on your SEO journey of learning and make a couple mistakes, than to let months go by, never make a mistake and never get started. Here are a few tips on succeeding, and in preventing yourself from getting lost in the wide, and sometimes tricky world of SEO.

* Make a firm decision to get started. There are a lot of people who will buy a program or purchase a product, but for some reason have difficulty in getting to know how to use it: as a result, they never do.

* Gain self-confidence through experience and constant practice. Far too many people hesitate to try out their ideas. The sooner you strengthen your confidence, the sooner you will realize the potential for what you can achieve and do. In the beginning, start with a few of your own sites where you have full creative liberty without encountering the demands or pressures that come from a client.

* Gather advice from the SEO community by visiting respected forums and discussion groups. Although at times you may not get leading edge stuff, since most of that costs a lot of money, however you will get an awesome amount of pertinent information. Plus, you'll also hear both sides of a story, both the pros and cons, from the debates that seethe within the community.

* Subscribe to reputable newsletters and learn from what the experts say. Many of them are free to sign up to and they can be a wonderful venue to start learning.