April 2008

The n dimensions of search engine optimization analysis

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 16, 2008 in SEO Metrics, SEO Theory

You can map search engine optimization across a variety of mathematical models. For example, traditional organic SEO is concerned with promoting a single URL to the highest possible position in the search results for a keyword. You can measure your position by drawing a line with 1,000 points numbered from 1 to 1001. [...]

Hakia introduces QDex - Proves Semantic Search Is A Failure

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 15, 2008 in SEO Theory

Hakia proudly announced its QDex-based search on its blog. What is QDex? It appears to be a human-edited crawl-seed directory.
In fact, it appears to be a publicly visible human-edited crawl-seed directory (like Yahoo! and DMOZ). Hakia claims: “hakia’s pioneering vision is to bring quality search results from vertical domains by ensuring the [...]

Brokering search engine optimization

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 13, 2008 in SEO Theory

There is a certain irony in the etymology of the word “broker” when one combines it with search engine optimization. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces broker back to medieval French, Portuguese, and English idiom for wine merchants.
A broker is a reseller, a middleman. He brings the buyer and the seller together, often helping [...]

Gaming semantic search

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 11, 2008 in SEO Theory

The impetus to adopt semantic markup standards in Web page content has faded off, an inevitable consequence (I feel) of the clash between the proposal for structure and the reality of the chaos that is today’s World Wide Web. Although semantic Web advocates remain passionate about their cause they have not yet persuaded a [...]

Michael Arrington doesn’t get search

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 10, 2008 in General

Michael Arrington seems to feel that it would be better for the Web if Microsoft absorbs Yahoo!.
As I have pointed out before, Microsoft cannot possibly build a unified brand quickly enough to retain combined market share with Yahoo! Nor will Microsoft allow the Yahoo! brand to co-exist on an equal level with the Microsoft [...]

Large Web site design theory and crawl management

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 10, 2008 in Content Theory, Link Theory

Crawl refers to all aspects of search engine crawling. It includes:

Crawl rate (how many pages are fetched in a given timeframe)
Crawl frequency (how often a search engine initiates a new crawl)
Crawl depth (how many clicks deep a search engine goes from a crawl initiation point)
Crawl saturation (how many unique pages are fetched)
Crawl priority [...]

Large website design and optimization theory

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 9, 2008 in Content Theory, Link Theory

We have an in-house working group that focuses on Large Web Site Design Theory. Although I cannot share many details about what the group does I want to discuss Large Website Design Theory (did you notice I spelled “website” as “web site” and vice versa?). Every growing blog has the potential to become [...]

Blogpooling for beginners

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 8, 2008 in Web spam

A lot of bloggers got themselves into trouble last year by participating in various “SEO meme” schemes. Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” in 1976 (so far as I know) to refer to a “cultural copying unit”. He modeled the idea on genes (gene / meme), where a meme is a “unit of [...]

Optimization for the expanding Web

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 7, 2008 in SEO Theory

The Netcraft March 2008 Web Server Survey shows that Netcraft has identified more than 160 million domains. Netcraft first reported 100 million domains in November 2006.
Netcraft reported 50 million domains in May 2004 so it took 30 months for an additional 50 million domains to hit their radar but subsequently only about half [...]

How not to design an “advanced” SEO conference

Posted by Michael Martinez on April 4, 2008 in General

I told Todd this morning that I have absolutely no interest in attending the “SMX Beginners” conference scheduled for Seattle this June 3 and 4. The agenda looks like a typical “introduction to basic SEO” schedule.
“Blow your mind link building techniques”. Oh, for the love of Jason Calcanis, Ted Leonsis, and Dave Pasternack, [...]

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