Developer Shed Weekly SEO News for 2008-08-08

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August 08, 2008 Welcome to this week's issue of the SEO Chat newsletter. Things have been buzzing recently; you'll hear more about a deal that has everyone talking when you read the Spotlight. But before we get to that, I'd like to bring your attention to the article we're highlighting this week from eWeek. Microsoft has been detecting interest in cloud computing, and created its own offering in that area. Is it worth checking out? Read the article to find out. This week's articles cover new features from Google and one man's climb to the top. On Wednesday, we took a look at Lively, Google's recent offering that seems to combine chat with social networking and virtual worlds. Google seems to be playing catch up here. On Tuesday, Mark Ellison told us how he became number 1 in Google for his site's chosen keywords, beating out such competitors as About.com. Here's a hint: it wasn't an overnight success. On Monday, we considered the ramifications of Google indexing Flash, thanks to some technological assistance from Adobe. Do you need to change the way you do SEO to reflect this? We've highlighted plenty of SEO-related tutorials from Tutorialized this week. We chose several this week that should be of equal interest to SEOs and web site designers concerned with making sure their sites are seen in the search engines and attracting traffic. Tutorialized features a huge assortment of tutorials on a wide range of topics; check it out. You're bound to find something that speaks to your interests. It's easy to do keyword research with the right tools, but it's much trickier to then choose which keywords will bring you the best return. That's the quandary faced by the originator of this week's thread. Starting with a hypothetical, he asks for advice, and receives plenty of it. Be sure to visit the thread to receive an education or share your expertise (or both!). This week's Spotlight, just for readers of our newsletter, focuses on Google's sale of the Performics Search Marketing group to France-based Publicis Groupe. Google couldn't hold on to Performics without riling many advertisement firms, but is there something suspicious about this sale? Scroll down to the Spotlight to find out. You will notice below that we have highlighted the Your Move Contest, brought to you by Moblin .org. Winners will be eligible to win free Mid Devices, $1000 USD, and two tickets to any open source event in the world. You can find more info about this great contest here! As always, thanks for reading. Until next time, SEO Chat Staff

ARTICLES Google Sees Flash. So What? How I Became Number 1 Chat Comes Alive with Google's Lively SEO on Tutorialized SEO Thread of The Week SEO Chat News Spotlight TOOLS Get Our Content on Your Site with DevText! New Articles, Right To Your E-mail Developer Search IBM eKits Make Development eAsy! Take advantage of free e-kits from developerWorks. E-kits give you a collection of tutorials, articles, webcasts, podcasts, and demos about a particular product, task, or role. This one-stop shop of resources empowers you to maximize your enterprise investment. Learn more. IBM Rational Project and Portfolio Management certification training e-kit Get free PMI training in the IBM Rational Project and Portfolio Management certification training e-kit. As a member of the Project Management Institute's (PMI's) corporate council, IBM has more than 12,000 PMI-certified project managers and has been honored for its educational programs. Now, you can learn more about the difference that IBM's project management curriculum makes with six free courses based on IBM's best-practices processes and tools. Learn more.

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It's edgy! It's irreverent! It's all about technology! It's News You Can't Use, and you won't want to miss it! View this week's edition to learn the answers to these burning questions: Technology helps celebrities be even bigger jerks than they already are -- and you can do it too! As always, the military gets the best toys -- and now they're making geeks AND Jen start drooling. Public service announcement: Grand Theft Auto is just a game. Honest. Watch the video!

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Google Sees Flash. So What? by Terri Wells 2008-08-06 Late in June Google and Adobe announced an arrangement whereby the search engine could now read and index Shockwave Flash files. The move has been hailed as a huge step forward, since Flash has up until now been invisible to the search engines and therefore invisible to searchers. But this isn't quite the panacea it appears to be. Let's begin our discussion with the official announcements from Google and Adobe. According to Adobe's web site, the software maker's contribution to this deal includes "optimized Adobe Flash Player technology" which it is providing to both Google and Yahoo. The technology will help the search engines index the many rich Internet applications (RIAs) that use the SWF file format. Basically, using Adobe's technology, the search engine bots can navigate through a live SWF application as if they were virtual users. Best of all, RIA producers won't need to change anything about their content to make it searchable. Granted, this is fairly exciting news. Google says the new technology covers SWF files of all kinds. "This includes Flash gadgets such as buttons and menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between," the company explains in a post about the arrangement. Since TechCrunch estimated that there are about 73 million Flash files on the web, that's a lot of stuff that was invisible suddenly getting indexed. Read Google Sees Flash. So What?

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How I Became Number 1 by Mark Ellison 2008-08-05 After a ridiculously long 16 months of hard work, my SEO efforts have paid off. After bragging some on a thread in the SEO Chat forums, I figured I should actually explain what I did and how I did it. Before I begin, I should thank the loyal SEO Chat members for all of their help. If you'd like to read the original comments, here's a link to the SEO Chat thread that inspired this article. If you'd rather not read the thread, you are probably wondering what exactly I did. Well, I took over the coveted #1 spot on Google for a highly competitive keyword in the health care field, beating search behemoths About.com and Wikipedia.org along the way. Now would you like to know how I did it? To the chagrin of most of you, there is no SEO "silver bullet." In fact, much of the time you waste searching forums and web sites for that bullet could probably be better spent doing what works. And as much as you hate to hear it, what works is linking. I'd love, as much as anyone, to flip some switch and get all of the traffic in the world, but at the end of the day, you really need to roll up your sleeves and build links aggressively... very aggressively. Read How I Became Number 1

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Chat Comes Alive with Google's Lively by KC Morgan 2008-08-04 While Google's services are often a delight to interact with, some have accused the search engine of not quite "getting" web 2.0. The doubters may shut up when they see Lively, one of the company's newest services. This article takes a close look at the offering. Chat and social networking are easy with Lively, a service offered by Google. You might see the fun design elements, the custom avatars and the list of locales and think that this free service is akin to popular online social games like Second Life. You would be wrong if you came to this conclusion, however. Google's Lively isn't necessarily meant to be a world unto itself, but one you can integrate with ease into your own existing network. What is Lively? Lively isn't exactly an online game, but it isn't that far off. You will create your own character (avatar) and you can even design your own personal space. From there, you simply choose where to want to go. Maybe you'd like to virtually visit a quiet cabin in the woods, a mountainside retreat, or a quaint coffeehouse in Vienna. Lively, in its way, offers these treats. All you have to do is point and click. Read Chat Comes Alive with Google's Lively

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Tutorialized is dedicated to programming, designing, and many other tech related tutorials. Submit Your Tutorial Today! 7 Basics of Good Web Design You should keep in mind these 7 basics when you build your own web site. Read the tutorial. Best SEO Tips For Web Designers Create an efficient search engine friendly website. Read the tutorial. How to Write an Article for the Web Write interesting articles to establish credibility and attract traffic. Read the tutorial. Search Engine Optimization: Meaning, Articles... Some general SEO techniques considered proper by the SEs. Read the tutorial. Creating Search Engine Friendly URLs using .htaccess Using .htaccess, mapping dynamic pages to static address is easy. Read the tutorial. SEO for Flash Optimization Flash is attractive, but getting spiders to see it takes a good bit of effort. Read the tutorial.

How can this SEO Newsletter be better? What do you like or dislike about this issue? Is there a topic you want to learn more about? What issues in search engine news are important to you? We'll consider your suggestions and ideas for improvement, so please email us. Email us.

Check out the amazing tutorials from IBM developerWorks and see what all the buzz is about! WebSphere Service Registry and Repository Manage, govern, and share services across your organization by using WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Follow the hands-on exercises to learn how to navigate the Web interface to publish, find, reuse, and update services. Building JavaScript applications with JSEclipse Using JSEclipse, JavaScript programmers now have their own Eclipse plug-in that provides many important features to aid in the development of JavaScript applications. JSEclipse gives JavaScript developers the same ease of use that Eclipse has been providing in the Java language and others for years. Learn to use this tool, while creating a colony of evolving "creatures" on your page. Learn how to install and use the Rational Asset Manager Eclipse client In this tutorial, you can learn how to install and configure the IBM Rational Asset Manager Eclipse client, explore the different views in the Asset Management perspective, learn various search techniques, work with existing assets, and submit a new asset. Improve your build process with IBM Rational Build Forge, Part 1: Create a continuous build and integration environment Learn how to implement a build management system that uses and extends your existing automation technologies. This tutorial shows, step-by-step, how to install and configure IBM Rational Build Forge to manage builds for Jakarta Tomcat from source code. Build Web services with transport-level security using Rational Application Developer V7, Part 1: Build Web services and Web services clients Build secure Web services with transport-level security using IBM Rational Application Developer V7 and IBM WebSphere Application Server V6.1. Follow this three-part series for step-by-step instructions about how to develop Web services and clients, configure HTTP basic authentication, and configure HTTP over SSL (HTTPS). This first part of the series walks you through building a Web service for a simple calculator application. You generate and test two different types of Web services clients: a Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) client and a stand-alone Java client. You also handle user-defined exceptions in Web services. Test terminal-based applications with Rational Functional Tester Regression testing -- in which code is thoroughly tested to ensure that changes have not produced unexpected results -- is an important part of any development process. But many testing environments neglect the terminal-based applications that still form the backbone of many industries. In this tutorial, you'll learn how the Rational Functional Tester Extension for Terminal-Based Applications works with other Rational Functional Tester to help test terminal-based applications quickly and easily. Improve your build process with IBM Rational Build Forge, Part 2: Automate builds for a real-world Tomcat project Learn how Rational Build Forge can extend a simple compile and package build process by adding customization and deployment capability. Go from a manual method to automating: checking for code changes; getting the latest source; compiling and packaging; customizing; copying to and restarting a deployment server; and sending e-mail notification that a new version is available. NEW! Application development for the OLPC laptop The XO laptop (of the One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative) is an inexpensive laptop project intended to help educate children around the world. The XO laptop includes many innovations, such as a novel, inexpensive, and durable hardware design and the use of GNU/Linux as the underlying operating system. The XO also includes an application environment written in Python with a human interface called Sugar, accessible to everyone (including kids). Explore the Sugar APIs and learn how to develop and debug a graphical activity in Sugar using Python.

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Choosing keywords is just one of many SEO challenges, but it's one of the most important. How do you know which ones to target? Simple keyword research doesn't always give you a straight answer. Check out this week's thread, where several forum members discuss strategy, and put in your two cents! SEO Keyword advice please roacha76 Hi Guys, I have been using Google Adwords Keyword tool to investigate keywords for SEO. I have found lots of keywords that fit the topic of my website. But I am having a hard time determining which ones to choose if they both relate to my content. Scenario 1: word1 80% competition 13,000 hits in July word2 70% competition 8,000 hits in July Which one would you choose and why? Scenario 2: word1 75% competition 4,500 hits in July word2 0% competition 2,900 hits in July Which one would you choose and why? I really appreciate any help or guidance you could give me! THE BERG In scenario 1, you may want to shoot for word2 to start off, though building towards both isn't a bad idea. But if you're new to this industry and the site is new, you may not know which of these 2 keywords brings better conversions. A good rule of thumb is that the more competitive the keyword is, the better it leads to conversions. Sometimes it's best to let your competition point out the best path when you're starting out. If they've been in it for a while, and there's money to be made, you can be certain that most of the angles have been played to squeeze the most conversions out. Before you begin doing your own analysis, you'll need to feed off of what others have discovered. In scenario 2, go for #2 at first. Keep in mind that around 40% of all searches goes to the #1 ranked keyword. Let's say you go for word1 and fight to get to the #2-#3 position. In doing this, you're going to maybe get as much traffic as you would have if you'd easily obtained #1 for word2. Anytime that there's no competition for a keyword that brings in good traffic, solidify your position at #1 (because the competition is coming if not already there.) Another thing: I roughly assume you're getting these results from the Google Adwords Keywords Tool. Am I right? If so, keep in mind that the competition level is based on competition within Adwords, and this is not the same as competition within Organics. It's a decent indicator, but people that fight for #1 with PPC aren't always the same people fighting for #1 organically. You most likely have more than 0% competiton of word2. tstolber Keyword Effectiveness Index Analysis or KEI Analysis is a good way of determining how competitive a search term is and how difficult it will be to achieve rankings for it. That is not the whole picture though. You need to apply a common sense factor to the final selection process as many research and academic based search terms give a great KEI score but will never convert to sales. This is probably exactly what you are seeing in Scenario 2. The KEI would suggest that the second term would be the best by a clear mile but if there is no competition that's probably because it's not a commercially targetable keyword. Posts from this thread may have been abridged or removed. Forum members are responsible for the content of these posts. Read the full thread.

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Google Sells Performics to Publicis When Google first acquired Performics as part of its purchase of DoubleClick back in April of 2007, many analysts wondered exactly what Google would do with the company. Given that Google is a search engine and Performics is in the SEO and SEM business, some speculated that Performics would start putting out some kind of Google-approved SEO package. Others pointed out that Google owning an SEO company was unethical and expected the search engine to sell off that part of its acquisition. Well, it looks like Google is living up to its Don't be evil slogan. It just sold the Performics Search Marketing business to Publicis Groupe. The Paris-based purchaser plans to integrate its acquisition into its new VivaKi Nerve Center. The important point to take away, however, is that the move puts Publicis Groupe in the number 1 or number 2 position (behind WPP Group's GroupM Search) in the world as far as digital marketing services are concerned. Nobody reading this piece will need to be reminded that this is the fastest growing sector of advertising and let's be blunt here, Google is very much in the advertising business. So what's the logic behind this move? Google really couldn't hold onto Performics. But selling it raises other concerns, especially to Publicis Groupe. The advertising company and Google created an alliance in June that involved the exchange of hundreds of employees to develop interactive advertising tools. According to MediaPost Publications, the two companies also began sharing intelligence and best practices in order to understand each other's cultures better and improve working relationships. Is something fishy going on here? While Google will look more like a friend than an enemy to Madison Avenue after this move, it's worth pointing out that the purchase will just strengthen bonds between Google and Publicis Groupe. The latter, in fact, will end up with the inside track to understanding the DART Search system possibly even giving them a leg up on rival GroupM Search. Google insists that it sold Performics to Publicis Groupe simply because it bid higher than anyone else (including, so it's been rumored, WPP Group), but you have to wonder. Then again, consider what would have happened if WPP Group had bought Performics. That company would have become the undisputed leader in digital marketing. With Performics in the hands of Publicis Group, however, a certain balance is maintained. Rob Norman, global CEO of GroupM North America, seems relatively unconcerned about any potential coziness with Google; his company, like Publicis Group, is also one of the search engine's clients. They [Publicis] bought 165 people, most of whom are in Chicago, he noted. So they're definitely bigger than us in search in Chicago, but I can't speak to whether that puts them 'on par' with WPP. Time will tell; for now, it does look as if the SEO landscape has undergone a serious change.

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