So, clearly it pays to tweet and build a credible Twitter presence. This means gaining a significant following in number, but also getting authoritative users to follow you (and hopefully retweet your links). This would appear to be good for plain old fashioned organic rankings as well as other supplemental search results. More importantly, it pays to create good content that will attract authoritative Twitterers to share it with others.
These things of course pay anyway, but it's nice to know that they actually do have an effect on search rankings as well.
It's not surprising that Twitter is currently playing a more important role in to search engine ranking than Facebook, simply because Twitter is public by default. Facebook is much more walled, meaning that most of the good Facebook data is private. Though it will be interesting to see what happens when Bing does integrate its newly acquired Facebook into its regular search offerings.
This wall of Facebook's is also a factor into why Facebook could potentially unleash its own legitimate search engine. It's got a search feature now of course, but there is a great deal of potential for them to do a whole lot more and really get under Google's skin. More on that here.
Sullivan provides more background and context around the search engines' social signals, as well as the full with both Bing and Google, and details about the Twitter Firehose's lack of nofollow.
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| Legacy Mark has been dedicated to serving the cemetery industry since 1987 by proudly offering a complete line of software products and services that help cemeteries of all sizes. The ever-increasing demands on the resources of cemeteries make better cemetery office tools more than a simple convenience, but a necessity. Legacy Mark software transitions your current office operation into an efficient and integrated system that automates your records, documents, maps and customer interaction. Everything from accessing records to viewing your maps to creating documents is made fast and easy. Our tools are easy to install, our support is second to none, our expertise is renowned, and our Rapid Deployment Plans get you up and running in no time. Being one of the first companies to recognize and tackle the significant challenges facing cemeteries in the information age doesn't make us better, our dedication to our customers does. Our software solutions have withstood the test of time and lead the industry for cost-effective, user friendly tools for your cemetery office. | |
I love showing off my Google power searching skills when presenting or meeting or talking with a prospective client. I just know it boosts my credibility in the eyes of my audience. Invest a bit of time in learning some of the lesser-used Google query refinements — i.e. the operators, parameters, and so forth — and you too can amaze your friends, family, boss, co-workers and clients!
For Part 1 of this series, I’m going to focus on the various commands: the search operators, also known as query operators — for the search box to restrict your results or to otherwise pull the needle from the proverbial haystack. If you’re an SEO practitioner, you surely know and use a number of these. Ah, but do you know them all…?
Google operators are case-sensitive, so be sure to use all lowercase letters (the iPhone’s Web browser will try to capitalize the first letter of every sentence, so make sure you go back and correct it before executing your query.)
Here’s my Top Ten list (well, more like 20+) of Google Query Operators:
| Operator Description | Format Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| filetype: | search marketing filetype:doc | Restrict search results by file type extension |
| site: | google site:sec.gov | Search within a site or domain |
| inurl: | inurl:marketing | Search for a word or phrase within the URL |
| allinurl: | allinurl: search marketing | Search for multiple words within the URL |
| intext: | intext:marketing | Search for a word in the main body text |
| allintext: | allintext: search marketing | Search for multiple words within the body text of indexed pages |
| intitle: | intitle:“search marketing” | Search for a word or phrase within the page title |
| allintitle: | allintitle: search marketing | Search for multiple words within the page title |
| inanchor: | inanchor:“search marketing” | Search for a word or phrase within anchor text |
| allinanchor: | allinanchor: search marketing | Search for multiple words within anchor text |
| daterange: | search marketing daterange:2454833-2454863 | Restrict search results to pages indexed during the specified range (requires Julian dates) |
| related: | related:www.abc.com/abc.html | Display pages of similar content |
| info: | info:www.abc.com/abc.html | Display info about a page |
| link: | link:www.abc.com/abc.html | Display pages that link to the specified page |
| cache: | cache:www.abc.com/abc.html | Display Google’s cached version of a page |
| define: | define:search marketing | Define a word or phrase |
| stocks: | stocks:goog | Display stock quote and financial info for a specified ticker symbol |
| phonebook: | phonebook: john smith, madison, wi bill withers | Display a residential phone directory listing |
| {area code} | 212 | Display location and map of an area code |
| {street address} | 123 main, chicago, il chicago, il chicago | Display a street map for a specified location |
| {mathematical expression} | 35 * 40 * 52 520 miles in kilometers | Do a calculation or measurement conversion |
Query Operator explanations
filetype:
You can restrict your search to Word documents, to Excel documents, to PDF files, or to PowerPoint files by adding filetype:doc, filetype:xls, filetype:pdf, or filetype:ppt, respectively, to your search query.
Want a great PowerPoint presentation on SEO best practices that you can re-purpose for a meeting? Simply query Google for seo best practices filetype:ppt. Need a marketing plan template? Since the template would most likely be a Word document, cut through the Web page clutter with a search of marketing plan template filetype:doc.
Side note: Don’t link to your own marketing plans if you don’t want them showing up in Google’s index.
In fact, Google allows any extension to be entered in conjunction with the filetype: operator, including htm, txt, php, asp, jsp, swf, etc. Google then matches on your desired extension after the filename in the URL. Note that there is no space after the colon when using this operator. You can use ext: instead of filetype: — they work exactly the same.
site:
You can search within a site or a domain by adding the site: operator followed by a site’s domain name to your query. For example, you could search for me (Stephan Spencer) but restrict your search to only pages within the Covario.com site with a query of stephan spencer site:www.covario.com.
You can also add a subdirectory to the end of the domain in a site: query. For example seo site:www.covario.com/what-we-do/.
To conduct a comprehensive search of all of the associated subdomains of a domain, omit the www and instead specify only the main domain. For example, a search for site:yahoo.comwould encompass not just www.yahoo.com, but also movies.yahoo.com, travel.yahoo.com, personals.yahoo.com and so forth. The site: search operator works even when just the domain extension (like .com, .org, .gov, or .co.uk) is specified. Thus, you can restrict your search to .com sites with site:com, to .gov sites with site:gov, or to .co.uk with site:co.uk.
Combining Boolean logic with the site: operator will allow you to search within multiple sites simultaneously. For instance, search marketing (site:marketingprofs.com | site:marketingsherpa.com | site:marketingpower.com) searches the three sites simultaneously.
Use the site: operator by itself without other search words to get a list of all pages indexed, such as site:actionableinsights.covario.com. Again, note that there is no space after the colon when using this operator.
inurl:
Use the inurl: operator to restrict the search results to pages that contain a particular word in the URL.
This can be especially useful if you want Google to display all the pages it has found with a particular script name, such as inurl:ToolPage site:www.vfinance.com. Again, there is no space after the colon when using this operator.
allinurl:
This operator is similar in function to the inurl: operator but is used for finding multiple words in the URL. It eliminates the need to keep repeating inurl: in front of every word you want to search for in the URL.
For instance, allinurl: china exporting is an equivalent and more concise form of the queryinurl:china inurl:exporting to find Web pages that contain the words china and exporting anywhere in the URL, including the filename, directory names, extension, or domain. ThereIS a space after the colon when using the allinurl: operator.
intext:
Searches for a word in the main body text. This is used in a similar fashion to inurl:.
allintext:
Searches for multiple words within the body text of indexed pages. This is used in a similar fashion to allinurl:.
intitle:
Use the intitle: operator (such as intitle:marketing) to look for documents where your specified word or phrase matches in the page title.
If you want to find Microsoft Word documents in which the document title (located within Properties under the File menu in Word) includes the phrase “marketing plan,” you would use the query intitle:“marketing plan” filetype:doc. Follow the intitle: operator with a word or a phrase in quotes, without a space after the colon.
allintitle:
This works like intitle: but searches for multiple words in the title. For instance, useallintitle: channel conflict online retail to search for documents that contain all four of those words in the title. Note that there is a space after the colon when using this operator.
inanchor:
The inanchor: operator will restrict your search to pages where the underlined text of inbound links matches your search word. For example, if you wanted to search for HTML site maps but confine your search to those pages with links that say “site map”,inanchor:”site map” would do the trick, since most sites link to their own site maps using the link text of “Site Map.”
Follow the inanchor: operator with a word or a phrase in quotes, without a space after the colon.
allinanchor:
This works like inanchor: but searches for multiple words in the anchor text. For example, the query seo tool allinanchor: download trial would invoke a search for pages relating to SEO tools that have the words download and trial in the anchor text.
Note that there is a space after the colon when using this operator.
daterange:
The daterange: operator restricts the search results to pages added or updated within the specified date range. It only accepts Julian dates, which makes it less user-friendly than it could be. You can find Gregorian-to-Julian date converters online, e.g. here.
You’ll almost certainly find it easier just to do your search first without a date range, then use the custom date range options in the “More search tools” area of the resulting SERP.
related:
“Related” queries show pages that are similar to the specified Web page. Follow this operator with a Web address, such as related:www.netconcepts.com, and you would find Web pages that are related to the Netconcepts.com home page.
info:
An info: query lets you know whether the specified page is known by Google, and it provides the title and a snippet (if available), a link to the page, a link to a cached version of the page (see below for an explanation of this), and a link to view pages that link to the specified page.
Supply a Web address after this operator, such as info:www.covario.com.
link:
The link: operator displays a sampling of pages that link to the specified Web page. Follow this operator with a Web address, such as link:www.covario.com to find pages that link to the Covario home page. Google does not support appending further refinements onto this operator such as excluding links within the same site.
cache:
The cache: operator provides a snapshot view of a Web page as it looked when Googlebot last visited the page. Follow this operator with a Web address, such as cache:www.covario.com to view the page that Google has cached. Note that Googlebot must have downloaded the page in order for this to work.
define:
This is a useful operator for quickly obtaining several definitions from various online glossaries. Curious about the definition of “tipping point”? Simply type in define: tipping point into Google.
stocks:
Wondering how your competitor is performing on Wall Street? Enter this operator followed by a ticker symbol to retrieve financial information, including latest stock quotes from Google Finance.
phonebook:
Google offers an online residential phone directory look-up. Simply follow this operator with a name and location (full street address, or just city and state, or ZIP code), or a phone number for a reverse number look-up.
{area code}
Google also offers an area code look-up. For example, enter 313 and Google returns the geographic location and map corresponding to that area code.
{street address}
Queries in the format of a street address automatically return street maps. Enter a full street address, or a ZIP code, or a city and state. For example, 123 east main street, madison, wi or 53703 or madison, wi are all valid map-based Google searches.
{mathematical expression}
Enter any valid mathematical expression, and Google’s calculator function will interpret it for you. It will even do measurement conversions for you, such as 8 ounces in cups. Learn more about what other syntax is valid at the Google calculator page.
“But, wait, there’s more!”
As you now know, in addition to combing through triillions of URLs the amazingly versatile Google can double as a calculator, measurement converter, phonebook, dictionary, street map atlas and stock ticker.
Enter a valid package tracking ID into Google and you can also track packages. Or, supply an airline and flight number to Google, and it will return flight times. Google will even return information about a car’s history if you query it with the VIN (vehicle information number.)
In fact, Google will spit back all sorts of interesting information when it recognizes a particular number format, such as a patent number, FAA airplane registration number, UPC Codes or FCC Equipment ID.
In Part 2, I’ll be back with more Google power user tips and tricks, including parameters that you can append to the URL of the Google SERPs for really handy SEO diagnostics and forensic analysis.
Today, Microsoft launched a revamp of their Bing Webmaster Tools. I talked to them back in June, when they previewed the tools at SMX Advanced, and they told me that they were starting from scratch and rebuilding the tool from the group up. So how are things different? They say they are focused on three key areas: crawling, indexing, and traffic. They provide charts that enable you to analyze up to six months of this data. Note that none of this information is available unless Silverlight is installed. See more on that later.
Crawling, Indexing, and Traffic Data
Microsoft tells me that they provide, per day, the number of:
Sounds interesting. Let’s dive in.
Traffic – Impressions and Clicks
The data is very similar to what Google provides. (Although Google currently only provides the latest month’s data. I’m not sure what happened to the historical data they used to provide.)
How does the accuracy stack up? I looked at a few samples.
It’s potentially useful to compare click through rates for Google and Bing, although Google provides the additional data point of the average position. Without that on the Bing side, it’s hard to discern anything meaningful from the comparison. Note that for both Google and Bing, the click numbers reported in webmaster tools in some cases vary significantly from what is reported in Google Analytics (and in other cases are nearly exactly the same). Google has some explanation of why the numbers sometimes vary, but my guess is that Google Analytics is reporting in particular organic Google traffic from more sources than Google Webmaster Tools is. Google Webmaster Tools also clearly buckets the numbers.
Unfortunately, while Microsoft provides six months of data, it appears that you can only view it on screen and can’t download the data. This makes the data much more difficult to use in actionable ways.
Index Summary
This chart shows the number of pages in the Bing index per day. This certainly seems useful, but it’s deceptive. Decreased indexing over time seems like a bad thing, worthy of sounding the alarms and investing resources to figure out the cause, but indexing numbers should always be looked at in conjunction with traffic numbers. Is traffic down? If not, there may not be a problem. In fact, if a site has had duplication and canonicalization problems, a reduction in indexing is often a good thing.
The ability to use XML Sitemaps to categorize your page types and submit canonical lists of those URLs to Google and monitor those indexing numbers over time provides much more actionable information. (Of course, Google doesn’t provide historical indexing numbers, so in order to make this data truly actionable, you have to manually store it each week or month.)
Index Explorer
The Index Explorer enables you to view the specific pages of your site that are indexed and filter reports by directory and other criteria.
Again it can be useful to drill in to this data, but it would be significantly more useful if it were downloadable. When you click on a URL, you see a pop up with controls to block the cache, block the URL and cache, and recrawl the URL. These are the same actions described below (see “block URLs” and “submit URLs”).
Crawl Summary
This chart is similar to what Google provides and shows the number of pages crawled each data.
Crawl errors are still available, but the “long dynamic URLs” and “Unsupported content type” reports are missing. In their places are additional HTTP error code reports. (The previous version of the tool listed only URLs with 404 errors.) Since Google provides all of these reports as well, the additional value is mostly in knowing if BingBot is having particular problems crawling the site that Googlebot isn’t. As with the query data, you can’t download any of this information, only view it on screen, which makes it much more cumbersome to use.
Block URLs
The new block URLs feature appears to be similar to Google’s removal URL feature. You can specify URLs that you want to remove from Bing search results. However, this feature differs from Google’s in that you don’t also have to block the URL with robots.txt, a robots meta tag, or return a 404 for the page. Microsoft told me that they are offering this feature because site owners may need to have page removed from the search results right away but might not be able to quickly block or remove the page from the site itself.
I find this a bit dangerous as it makes troubleshooting later very difficult. I can see someone blocking a bunch of URLs or a directory and someone else, months or years later, building new content on those pages and wondering why they never show up in the Bing index. Microsoft did tell me that they recommend this feature as a short term, emergency solution only, as the pages will still be crawled and indexed, they simply won’t display in results. But recommended uses and actual uses tend to vary.
Submit URLs
This feature enable you to “signal which URLs Bing should add to its index”. When I talked to Microsoft back in June, I asked how this feature was different from submitting an XML Sitemap. (And for that matter, different from the existing Submit URLs feature.) They said that you can submit a much smaller number of URLs via this feature (up to 10 a day and up to 50 a month). So I guess you submit XML Sitemaps for URLs you want indexed and use this feature for URLs you REALLY want indexed?
Silverlight
Yes, I realize this is a technology, not a feature. And in fact, it may well be an obstacle for some users rather than a benefit. (For instance, I primarily use Chrome on my Mac, which Silverlight doesn’t support.) But Microsoft is touting it as the primary new feature of this reboot. Since most of the data is available only graphically, and not as a download, without Silverlight, you basically can’t use Bing Webmaster Tools at all.
What’s Missing
Microsoft says that they “hit the reset button and rebuilt the tools from the group up.” This means that many of the features from the previous version of the tool are now missing. When I spoke to them, they said that they took a hard look at the tool and jettisoned those items that didn’t provide useful, actionable data. So, what have they removed?
Overall, the relaunch provides data that’s potentially more useful than before, although this usefulness is limited without the ability to download the data. I also find the Silverlight requirement frustrating, but it remains to be seen if this is a significant obstacle to use of the tool. There’s nothing here that Google doesn’t provide in its tools, but with the Bing soon to be powering Yahoo search, site owners may find getting insight on Bing-specific issues and statistics to be valuable.. Historical information is great (although you can get this manually from Google if you download the data regularly), but particularly with query data, it’s hard to know how accurate the reports are (for both Google and Bing). In some cases, the data is misleading without additional data points (such as having click through data without position information and overall indexing trends without details).I always welcome additional information from the search engines, but as always, make sure that the data you use to drive your business decisions is actionable and is truly telling you what you think it is.
If your in-house programs for Google, Yahoo and Bing are running like well-oiled machines, it’s time to start poking around for new online marketing channels to test. An option many online marketers report increasing success with is Facebook ads. Facebook advertising doesn’t work quite like a search engine does, so read on for a primer to getting started.
Setting campaign goals
Many in-house marketers are running Facebook ads to promote their Facebook social media marketing efforts by promoting a page, group, or other Facebook feature. There’s nothing wrong with setting a goal related to social media, like number of new fans or friends, but there’s equally nothing wrong with setting more traditional campaign goals (direct sales, site traffic) for your Facebook advertising efforts.
Whatever choice you make, keep the campaigns distinct. Promoting your Facebook social media will necessitate different ad texts, URLs, calls to action and probably spend levels than a more traditional online marketing campaign driving traffic direct to your site. Don’t mix and match them if you decide to market via Facebook ads for both.
Creating Facebook ads
When creating Facebook ads that link to a non-Facebook site, definitely use tracking parameters in URLs (or another method of tracking) as you would for any online marketing. Facebook ads also really benefit from including an image. Click-through rate is much higher for ads with images than those that are text only. Otherwise test ads as you would for any online marketing to see what works best.
Targeting tips
The key feature of Facebook advertising is the robust targeting options. Besides location, demographic and language targeting options, there’s a robust set of likes, interests and connections options that are worth exploring.
For Likes and Interests targeting, explore keywords that are relevant to your site, but also explore competitor or related brand names that would also be of interest to your target audience. For example, if advertising for Gap, you might also want to target people who are interested in Old Navy, J Crew, or related brands as well as generic terms like “fashion” or “clothes”. Take note of Facebook’s suggestions as they can provide additional ideas.
Connections on Facebook provides powerful targeting features. You can choose to target profiles that are only connected to a group or page you manage, which is a great way to market to your current audience. The more compelling feature is to exclude this audience by focusing on those Facebook profiles which are not already connected to your group or page. If your campaign is set on generating new customers or fans, this feature will help narrow the focus of your campaign.
Targeting Friends of Connections can also help narrow focus further to those profiles which are friends of people connected to your group or page, therefore possibly a more relevant (like minded) audience for your offering than a broader demographic or likes and interest preference.
One additional element to consider is encouraging people to “like” your Facebook ad. Facebook is vague on what exactly the number of likes determines: “We will then take this feedback into account as we continue to improve our advertising systems for all advertisers and users.” But it could lead to increased ad serving via a measure similar to Quality Score. Therefore, encouraging friends or fans to like the ad, if possible given your targeting, may help the ad’s success.
Measuring Success
Facebook ads are a lot more like running a banner or display campaign than search engine marketing; don’t expect a search engine marketing result for direct sales campaigns. Click-through rates are generally lower than search and conversion rates can also be low. That said, some advertisers are a great fit and see wild success via these campaigns, others are disappointed with the results when comparing to other marketing channels.
Branding can be an important element of success measurement for Facebook. There’s no denying it’s a highly trafficked site and one that many online marketers feel they simply need or benefit from a presence on Facebook as part of their competitive strategy. Since CTRs are on the low side and pricing is CPC based, there are a lot of free impressions being generated for an advertiser.
The idea for Timekapsule came to one evening as I was watching the closing scene from the Gangs of NY. It showed a time lapse scene of 18th century grave stones being over taken by weeds and wearing away with as the NY skyline rose in the background to present day.
I asked myself, when I finally 'buy the farm' and 50, 60 , 70 years have passed it would be nice for my kin-folks and friends to know something more personal about me.
What music did I like?
What were my hobbies?
My favorite food, favorite books and movies?
Did I own any pets, or did I even like animals?
Let’s face it, not many of us are going to get around to writing an auto-biography. It’s all these little things that make us truly unique. It’s not our jobs, or accomplishments or the money we make that defines us.
Maybe my grand-kids will be able to find my Timekapsule and finally figure out why they possess a special talent for music or art. ( And hopefully after reading my Timekapsule they will figure out it that the talent might have came from me!)
Timekapsule is your final shout out. It’s Facebook for the dead.
Here’s how it works.
You sign-up and create a profile.
Timekapsule is completely secure.
Once you signup you can create as many Timekapsules as you want.
You can create a locked Timekapsule that sends email to any one you want letting them know you have created a Timekapsule, but it’s not mandatory.
It you create an alert, a notification will be sent to these people (and only these people) letting them know your Timekapsule has opened.
You can also create a FREE open Timekapsule that is open for anyone to see who is also a Timekapsule member.
So there you have. With Timekapsule, you create it, lock it and leave it.
Matt Cutts the Google Guy, who I call the 'man behind the curtain' at the gates Google posts informative videos for everything web! You can find Matt's videos on You Tube, Google Video and many other places.
in reference to: Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO (view on Google Sidewiki)Social interaction is a wonderful thing, but there are too many people who forget how to be polite.
Maybe Google can create an API to detect rude, nasty and inflammatory speech that will serve-up a quick warning before the user clicks 'submit'.
