It’s been a quiet week on Sphinn due to several conferences taking place, here’s what people were talking about outside of the conference scene.

18th August - Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It) (ViperChill)
Copyblogger looks at how the best articles aren’t always the most popular and how to make sure that your voice is heard. It’s an unfortunate fact that in most cases - no matter how good your articles are, only a loyal and connected readership can really help them to explode. Hopefully Sphinn can act as a catalyst to this, with previously unknown bloggers being found through the site.
Direct Link: copyblogger

18th August - Link Building for Business-to-business companies (Wiep)
B2B marketing can require a slightly different approach to SEO than a B2C campaign, although shouldn’t be considered any harder to manage. In fact as Erik-Jan points out in his article, there are many ways that companies can exploit their B2B position, such as using both suppliers and existing clients as potential link sources. Erik offers some great tips for people working in this area of marketing or working with a client in such a position.
Direct Link: Yoast

20th August - BBC Starts Linking From News Articles (Badly) (ciaran)
BBC is the British mecca of links, a PR8 authority super-hub that draws envy and desire from webmasters. The fact that the corporation is ad-free and extremely wary of remaining neutral makes a link that much harder to get. Former employees of BBC have stated that some of their online news editors have simply Googled the story subject and picked the top organic listing to link to in the past. Ciaran Norris also notes that they’re now attempting in-line linking within stories rather than their usual sidebar links, although have online again failed to get it right.
Direct Link: altogether digital

20th August - Examining Backlink Profiles in Domain & Ranking Evaluation (Guillaume)
Buying established websites and building their value is big business, although how much is the website really worth? Guillaume looks at how a website with a seemingly impressive backlink profile can actually be a worthless web or third-party controlled links. Building micro-sites for the purpose of supplying links to your main site can be a very effective technique for affiliates, although will those links continue after the site is sold? What if the links are owned by the site’s former SEO company? This post offers some sound advice for domainers and website resellers .
Direct Link: NVI Solutions

23rd August - SEOmoz Expert Seminar 2008 Recap (PixelBella)
Brian Carter gives the first review of the primordial SEOmoz Expert Seminar in Seattle. Apparently those sneaky kids at the mozplex have asked the not-a-conference seminar attendees not to blog the content, I’m not sure if it’s a permanent or time limited media blackout though. Brian gives a good overview of the event though, and it sounds like the seminar was a tremendous success. Maybe something to stick in your diaries for next year!
Direct Link: Brian Carter

11th August - Get Better Returns on Your Conference Investment (NickWilsdon)
There has been a lot of discussion lately about the value of Internet Marketing conferences, large and small. With economic slow-down effecting some people, they’re now thinking harder about the value which comes with attending conferences. Lee Odden tackles the subject of getting ROI out of events with the help of conference organisers and long-time attendees.
Direct Link: iMedia Connection

11th August - An End To Ranking Reports Is An End to Analysis (ViperChill)
A few people have commented on Sphinn that they do not monitor search engine rankings and that both SEOs and clients shouldn’t. This standpoint has perplexed me, as I prefer to see as much data as possible in order to judge how well a site is performing. In competitive industries, dropping from 1st to 3rd position on Google for a single search term can lose a company tens of thousands of dollars a day. Without knowing when the drop happened and on which datacentres, how are you supposed to analyse why it happened? Stoney deGeyter looks at the arguments for and against ranking analysis.
Direct Link: Search Engine Guide

12th August - How Much Might Your Website Be Worth? (ViperChill)
As an SEO I often think only about the long-term profitability of a website, although it’s not the only way to make good money online. A whole industry has evolved around the buying and selling of websites, adding value to a site with good content or traffic. If you’re like me, you’ve probably got websites stashed all over the place, only remembering that you own them when your domain renewal notice lands in your Inbox. So how much are your hobby sites, information portals and one-page-wonders worth? Ann Smarty offers a simple guide to how you can estimate a website’s value.
Direct Link: Search Engine Journal

13th August - How to Deal with the Problem Child in Your Adwords Campaign (ciaran)
A post on YOUmoz discusses a problem that many people face with the PPC campaigns. We’re talking about the Goliath keyword which generates massive traffic with a great CTR, although sometimes it just doesn’t meet your CPA targets. HannahS runs through how she optimises the big keywords in her accounts, through Ad Group isolation and increasing target relevance.
Direct Link: YOUmoz

14th August - Does PDF metadata have any significant effect on ranking in Google search results? (infatex)
Benj Arriola conducts research into PDF optimisation and how Google uses file Meta Data and embedded information in order to establish relevance, references and possibly rank. It’s great to see people still doing this much research into ranking factors and studying how search engines evolve in their ability to process and understand information outside of the basic web page. Well worth a read.
Direct Link: BusinessOnLine

4th August - Reddit & Digg Launch Mobile Versions (BrentCsutoras)
Both Reddit and Digg now have mobile versions of their site, in-line with the vastly increasing demand for mobile internet. Although both sites would work well on your brand spanking new iPhone 3G, the problem I see is that the Digg and Reddit model relies on users clicking out of the sites to view the 3rd party content. With the majority of other sites not providing a mobile alternative and some embedding functionality such as Flash, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to read the linked content properly. I’m sure that regular social media fans are enjoying their new found freedom away from the bedroom computer, although content owners and publishers such as BBC and CNN still have the edge when it comes to mobile information.
Direct Link: Brent Csutoras

4th August - The Huge Collection of Google Analytics Tips (kevgibbo)
Ann Smarty provides some helpful tips for getting the most out of Google Analytics. A lot of Urchin’s functionality seems to have been lost post-Google acquisition, although a lot of cool data recording and analysis techniques can still be achieved with some insider knowledge. To dig even deeper into GA, I highly recommend Brian Clifton’s book “Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics”.
Direct Link: SearchEngineJournal

4th August - How to use URL Search to get thousands of visitors (tomcritchlow)
You’d be surprised how many people type domain names and URLs into search engines, often because the search engine is their homepage or they’re not sure if they’ve spelt it correctly. Patrick shares how his blog managed to generate traffic by ranking for the URL of a popular UK Government car tax registration/renewal page. If the real page is down or if your search listing appears more genuine, easy traffic could be gained.
Direct Link: BlogStorm

5th August - Examining a Search Ranking Fluctuation (vangogh)
XMCP list a number of factors that Google most likely considers when ranking a page/site or detecting spam.
Direct Link: SlightlyShadySEO

6th August - Find Customers and Backlinks by Adding Your Site to Coupon Directories (philbutler)
Coupon Directories are a great way to draw in new customers who scour the web for bargain and special offers. Ann mentions that the coupon listings can also help fill your brand name search results with positive reviews and also help towards link development. The post also gives a list of popular coupon directories.
Direct Link: SearchEngineJournal

6th August - Google Insights for Search Launches (MattMcGee)
Barry blogs about the launch of Google Insights, yet another data analysis tool launched by Google last week. Google Insights allows users to compare and filter regional and seasonal trends, helping advertisers plan their campaigns around past and new data. Check out the SEL post for an example of Insights in action.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

7th August - What 36,389,567 Searches Can Tell You About Google (TCSM)
Post of the week award (well, not really an award) goes to Pete, who explains how he estimates the clickthrough rate of each position in a search results page. The data comes from our old friend, the leaked AOL data, that everyone got excited about many years ago during SES San Jose.
Direct Link: TCSM

8th August - Top Website Usability Mistakes - 10 Costly Assumptions (DaveDavis)
Website owners and internet marketers often find it hard to take a step back from their site and look at it as a first time visitor might. Unfortunately in list format, the advice is simplistic although this shouldn’t neglect from the fact that the factors covered are often overlooked.
Direct Link: PalmerWebMarketing

26th July - Microsoft tries to one-up Google PageRank (soulfood)
Cnet covered news on a research study carried out in Asia, highlighting Microsoft’s BrowseRank method of ranking the most important and popular websites for a search term. BrowseRank assigns web pages priority based on traffic and how long visitors stay on the site. Search Marketers are already testing the effect of clickthrough rates on organic search results in Google, to see what effect the popularity of a site has on its rankings. Although studies may find BrowseRank to be a worth competitor to the well-known PageRank method, a real would study would most likely show a completely different picture. If you don’t like the idea of buying links, imagine a world where buying access to thousands of compromised PCs in order to increase BrowseRank became common place.
Direct Link: Cnet

29th July - New Search Engine Cuil Launches But Something is Amiss (gyutae)
Another “Google Killer” was launched under the name of Cuil - who said that all the good domains were taken? The biggest reasons why this new start-up has been given so much attention is that the company was started by former Googlers and their claimed index size is larger than their former employer’s. With reports of slow loading times and large inaccuracies in the result sets, Cuil has suffered a number of teething difficulties. The biggest test is yet to come though, and I’d be impressed if they reached anywhere near 1% market penetration (that’s my “the internet will never work” statement ;)).
Direct Link: SearchRank

29th July - The Mother of All SMX Local/Mobile Recaps (MattMcGee)
David Mihm offers a round-up of July’s SMX Local & Mobile conference in San Francisco, for those like myself who were unable to attend. The post summarises some highlights from the many sessions, including data on local search patterns and how to geo-target in organic search results. Lots of juicy info from this growing conference and segment of our industry.
Direct Link: David Mihm

30th July - Comprehensive Look at Digg’s Recommendation Engine (UtahSEOpro)
In a very comprehensive article on SearchEngineLand, Muhammad Saleem gives insight into how Digg’s new Recommendation Engine works. Including video clips from Digg’s founder, the article clears up misconceptions and interprets what the impletentation means to the internet marketing industry.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

30th July - Why Reputation Management Matters for Small Businesses (MattMcGee)
Sphinn moderator Matt McGee explores how Reputation Management is important even to SMEs, including an interview with industry old-timer Andy Beal. As customer reviews are becoming more wide-spread on the net, it’s important that even family owned restaurants and small product manufacturers keep an eye on what people are saying about their brand and react accordingly.
Direct Link: Small Business SEM

31st July - Sell your #12 Google Ranking to Dragons Den for £255,000! (kevgibbo)
People outside of the UK may not be familiar with the TV series Dragons Den, although the story is interesting on its own merits. In the show, millionaire investors listen to business pitches and decide which products they’d like to invest in. In last week’s show, a failing pitch from a diamond website was seemingly turned around by the mention of the site’s Google rankings. It was interesting to see how traditional entrepreneurs recognised the value in strong organic search rankings for competitive terms. The discussion on Sphinn was joined by the diamond website’s owner, who gave further insight into how the show was edited and his previous issues with incompetant SEO agencies.
Direct Link: SEOptimise

31st July - How To Get New Web Sites To Rank Quickly (kevgibbo)
Aaron Wall’s guest post at SEL looks at different approaches to gaining relevant traffic without necessarily hitting the biggest target terms. Targeting less popular terms can result in faster revenue generation and creating information based sites can attract natural links much more easily.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

Ignoring the ego-fest that ensued last week, some solid posts also made their way to the front page. These are the ones that I feel were important to read.

21st July - Ultimate Guide to Search Marketing (UtahSEOpro)
Josh Dreller continues his “In The Trenches” column as Search Engine Land with more great information on the latest PPC/CPA landscape at the big 3 engines. Dreller’s article covers the basics of campaign optimisation, along with some excellent tips when faced with a variety of campaign situations. It also looks at the constant dilemma of when and whether you should use keyword broad matching on paid search campaigns.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

22nd July - The Holy Grail of SEO (ronsansone)
All SEOs have to face the dreaded question, “How much traffic/revenue will I get from SEO?” and everyone has different ways of approaching the question. Not only are accurate (or even near-accurate) search numbers needed for the targeted keywords, the SERP clickthrough rate of each keyword (dependant on ranking) needs to be estimated. Another approach is to use the data of existing clients, although another data source is still required in order to form a benchmark.
Direct Link: SearchEngineWatch

22nd July - FireFox for SEOs: Working with Several FireFox Profiles (DoshDosh)
A great tip from Ann Smarty showing you how to create multiple profiles in Firefox, each with their own plug-ins, bookmarks and settings. This can be extremely helpful for SEOs, who can separate the tools and sites they use for Link Building, testing and private surfing. Some people may not want to give certain companies their toolbar data all of the time, others may have multiple Digg (but not Sphinn :evil:) profiles.
Direct Link: SearchEngineJournal

22nd July - Spam detection using historical factors (vangogh)
Google is looking at you and everything that you do, even if you consider yourself to be a “White Hat” SEO. Dave “theGypsy” takes a look at some of the data that Google is collecting about your sites and how it could be used to identify them as breaching Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Direct Link: Huo Mah

22nd July - Visual Comparison of Search Results: A Censorship Case Study (billslawski)
Bill Slawski points Sphinn members over to a research study from Indiana University, where a tool was made to compare search results between countries. The tool was created to test how search engines may be censoring search results in specific regions of the world. There are of course many other reasons for differences in the results sets, including but not limited to country-specific search behaviour where the search engines adapt results to reflect the way that people in that country interact with the engines.
Direct Link: Indiana University
Hat Tip: Bill Slawski

23rd July - Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For “Around $200 Million” (DoshDosh)
The big story of the week was Google’s talks with social news site Digg, with a rumoured price tag in the region of $200m. It was later announced that negotiations failed after Google supposedly had issues with technical aspects of the mammoth site.
Direct Link: TechCrunch

24th July - Knol Does Indeed Give Pages A Google Ranking Advantage (northrock)
Google’s Wikipedia, “Knol”, was launched with a fanfare by its creators, with assurances that articles hosted on the new information source would not get unfair ranking or benefit from Google’s domain authority. This post by Danny Sullivan found that 33% of the 30 terms he checked were ranking competitively. It’s far from dominating the search results like Wikipedia so far, although will certainly be a target for many marketers.
Direct Link: SearchEngineLand

I’m trying out a slightly different format for this Sphinn Weekly, based on all of your public and private suggestions. Let me know what you think

15th July - How to track your outbound clicks with onclick in Google Analytics (Gab)
I was happy to see this post by Richard Baxter about click tracking in GA, which is extremely important for SEO as well as analytics and conversion optimisation. I work with many blue-chip companies who have appended variables and used tracking URLs on their website without realisation of the risks. Many analytics packages (which will remain nameless) require variables to be appended onto URLs. This often results in duplicate content issues and the dilution of authority. The implementation of analytics software may seem a trivial action, although the consequences of poorly implemented applications can result in serious SEO issues. The use of “onclick” tracking can avoid spider pollution as implementations such as Google Analytics onclick tracking does not result in the spider following them.
Direct Link: SEOGadget.co.uk
Hat Tip: Yoast.com

15th July - Domain Age: How Important Is It for SEO? (dsnyder)
The fact that Google is an ICANN registrar is a very important point when looking at their interest in domain age and authority. The fact that they have direct access and manipulation of the TLD zone files whilst still registering domain names through 3rd parties such as “Mark Monitor” speaks volumes. I would partly agree with Ann Smarty’s findings in saying that domain age may be a factor in deciding if a website is around for long term, although spam fighting factors such as registrant information and nameservers are much more important to Google.
Direct Link: Search Engine Journal

16th July - Using PPC Marketing Data To Invest Wisely In Domains (DaveDavis)
This post was a real diamond for me, and a great technique for anyone looking to invest in domain names. Why guess a domain’s value, when you can get on Google’s content network (such as Sedo), test a domain’s impressions/CTR and then purchase the domain based on your existing CTR and commission values. Excellent post Dave!
Direct Link: Red Fly Marketing

17th July - Online SEO Tools - the Ultimate Collection (patrickaltoft)
One of the fastest ever growing posts on Sphinn was this week’s round-up of SEO Tools by Ann Smarty. The post researches and compares her favourite tools for the mainstream tasks of an SEO. As a Sphinn Greatest Hit, this is well worth a read to either discover new tools or compare alternatives to those which you already use.
Direct Link: Search Engine Journal

17th July - Vanessa Fox: Search-Friendly Flash? (Harith)
Vanessa drills down into the real aspects of crawling Flash, after Google and Yahoo announced a partnership with Adobe - allowing them to crawl content in .swf files. The announcement resulted in many SEOs getting calls from their clients and managers, requesting confirmation that it’s now OK to re-create their website completely in Flash. Although some Flash elements can be aesthetically pleasing, the format will never replace simple mark-up based code such as HTML, and issues such as pagination remain unsolved. If you happen to be a Flash designer and are reading this, STEP AWAY FROM THE SWF EXPORT!
Direct Link: Vanessa Fox Nude

18th July - Google Continues To Test A Search Interface That Looks More Like Digg Every Day (hugoguzman)
A great insight from Michael Arrington from TechCrunch regarding Google’s dabblings with user participation and personalisation. It’s already thought that Google’s current click-tracking influences the position of natural results in some circumstances; just like with paid search listings. So Digg-style voting on search results is logically the next step. Hopefully this doesn’t result in complacency at Google, as many SEOs are already experimenting with organic search click-bots, and auto-voting would not be much harder to achieve.
Direct Link: TechCrunch

The inaugural Sphinn Weekly has arrived, rounding up the last 7 days in Sphinnworld (not the same as Discworld, for legal reasons). Here are the best submissions of the week, according to an evil green monkey

12 Tips on Creating Content for Social Media - 07/07/08 (MattMcGee)
I know that a lot of SEOs won’t like the first story of this round-up being an <insert number> Tips/Ways/Lessons post about Social Media, although this is one of the few posts of its nature that I’ve enjoyed. Sphinn Moderator, Matt McGee, gives some very useful tips to the social late-starters amongst us. Even if you have no interest in spamming posting on Digg, these tips easily apply to starting a blog and creating your own micro-community. How many times have you disagreed with something another blogger has written? Did you follow-up and post about it?

Google trying patent “FriendRank” (a.k.a. Network Node Ad Targeting) - 07/07/08 (hugoguzman)
Google has taken out a patent that makes use of existing networks of friends, fans and followers, by finding influencers in the group and getting them to host Google’s advertising. The methodology laid out seems similar to Ask’s method of identifying “Hub” sites, although on a much more granular level. The patent specifically mentions social networks as a target for finding influential people, with the prospect of financially rewarding popular member profiles that host their advertising (i.e. AdSense).

The End of Paid Links is Near - 08/07/08 (rjonesx)
A very interesting concept of how Google could target paid links more effectively has been posted over at theGoogleCache. Although just a scenario (the screenshot had me fooled for a while), the post states how Google could allow website owners (via Webmaster Tools) to state which links on their site are paid for without the advertiser knowing. This would allow the publisher to avoid paid links penalties, whilst Google could footprint and isolate link buyers more effectively. The post suggests informing Google of the CSS id’s wrapping the paid links, although HTML could also be specified using a WYSIWYG interface. Hopefully Mr. Cutts didn’t see that post

Google’s Keyword Tool Now Showing Search Volume Numbers - 08/07/08 (Makakman)
Probably one of the biggest moves this year for all those interested in Search, Google is now releasing search volume numbers. In the past SEOs and PPC peeps had to rely on inaccurate and weighted numbers from 3rd party data collection companies. With other search engines barely registering in market share in many countries, Google’s volume numbers are as close as you can get to accurate traffic estimates. It will be interesting to see how the likes of HitWise, Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery react to this move, with their offering now reliant on keyword expansion, data analysis and search numbers for countries that Google has yet to conquer. Either way, a fantastic move by Google for advertisers and data junkies!

15 Internet Sites That Can Make or Break Your Brand - 08/07/08 (toddmintz)
Some websites hold the kind of power that can influence the minds of hundreds of thousands just in a single blog post, comment or review. These sites could make your brand the next big thing, or the laughing stock of the dub dub dub. Todd takes you through the top 15 sites to keep your eye on, and potentially market towards.

Reputation Crises Management: 8 SEO Triage Tips - 10/07/08 (northrock)
Following on from Todd’s submission for reputation building, Marty posts a very intelligent guide on what to do when it all goes wrong. Fixing a brand’s reputation needs a carefully thought out and rapid strategy, people don’t wait around before forming opinions. These 8 tips should put your brand or client on the right track.

Happy 1st Birthday, Sphinn! - 10/07/08 (MattMcGee)
Matt McGee gets in first with a Happy 1st Birthday message for Sphinn. Thanks to everyone who has helped to make Sphinn such a great community, whether you’re a moderator, Sphinn addict or super-hero bug fixing Sphinnmaster

The Ultimate Guide to the Google Search Parameters - 11/07/08 (annie7)
So you think you know how to search on Google? Peter Wailes publishes the ultimate guide for Google addicts, link builders and data crunchers alike in his YOUmoz post.  I know what you’re thinking, “I already know them all”… think again!

So what were your favourite stories from last week?

Hi Everybody (Hi Dr. Nick!).

Anyway… welcome to the Sphinn blog! Danny, Michelle and I have been chatting about the idea of moving Sphinn announcements away from the main site for quite some time, which has resulted in the launch of this shiny (and slightly sparkly) new blog. We’d also like to chat a lot more about Sphinn and what’s going on in the community, which has been hard to manage in the past, without cluttering up Sphinn’s homepage with submissions about… Sphinn.

As well as Sphinn accouncements and discussions, I will also be launching a weekly round-up post, cunningly named “Sphinn Weekly”. The post will highlight Sphinn submissions from the past week that I feel are worth a mention, whilst also giving some of my own views on matters, where appropriate of course.

The plan is to post each week’s round-up on Monday - yes, I said Monday. The reasons why are:

1. Everyone else does weekly round-ups on Friday which few people read until Monday
2. I’m usually out in London for a small glass of Sherry on Fridays (you don’t want me posting whilst drunk). and…
3. I can write the post on Sunday, which is the day I have the most free time.

Hopefully you’ll all add us to your RSS readers and make use of the open commenting.

Speak to you all soon,

Rob Kerry
evilgreenmonkey [Sphinn Profile]
Sphinn Editor