January 2007 - BPWrap

Removing Spam From The Web

Neither Hormel, the maker of Spam, nor Monty Python’s Spamalot would appreciate the sentiment in the title. However the rest of us would very much like to see the end of that other spam that accumulates on the web.

One major influence in creating all this rubbish was Google with its search view that the number of inlinks to a web page could be a measure of the importance of that web page. Once every one knew that, the name of the game was to create as many other inlinks as you could. Even though this was against the Google Terms of Service, for a time it seemed to work. The view that inlinks are what counts persists and is as strong as ever even though Google has been improving its ability to root out the spam-producers.

Now Matt Cutts, a Googler with some authority on this topic, has written a very clear explanation of what they’re doing about spam. This was triggered by a new service to create “Undetectable” spam. The follow-up to that is well described by Loren Baker in a post, Matt Cutts vs. V7N Links : Matt Wins. Another sign of the times is that Wikipedia seems to have gone the “No Follow” route in adding this tag to all its outlinks. So these will no longer count as inlinks conferring authority in the Google search process.

One would hope that the message will get around and the mindless creation of inlinks or the search for irrelevant reciprocal linking will cease. Unfortunately too many people currently waste too much time and money on these pursuits and spoil the scene for the rest of us.

Can Microsoft Catch Google On The Internet .. This Year?

Bill Gates set some tight deadlines for Microsoft’s efforts to catch up to Google on the Internet (tip of the hat to Peter Da Vanzo) over the past two years. However as the San Jose Mercury News reported (subscription required), these efforts do not seem to be paying off. Here are some key figures:

According to comScore Media Metrix, the total unique audience that visited Microsoft’s U.S. Web sites in December 2006 was roughly 117 million, unchanged from the previous year. Google is fast catching up, with its number of unique visitors up 21 percent to 113 million.

Microsoft’s Internet slide is reflected in its online sales. During the quarter ended Sept. 30, sales for the online business unit were $539 million, down 5 percent in a year. Google, in cruel comparison, reported revenue of $2.69 billion, an increase of 70 percent.

Google is naturally pleased about their progress but is avoiding crowing over Microsoft’s misfortunes. In the Economist magazine, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt suggested that open Web-based standards would “sweep aside the proprietary protocols promoted by individual companies striving for technical monopoly” in 2007. “The past few years have taught us that business models based on controlling consumers or content don’t work,” Schmidt wrote.

That’s one view of history. I’m not sure that this is what history is showing. Google has a great search tool and that is the driver of the company’s success. It’s fast, it indexes new information fast and it has a very ‘usable’ interface that couldn’t be simpler. In reality the actual search relevance is difficult to measure. It’s almost like buying detergents. What has counted up till now is the packaging and Google packaged it best.

The interesting aspect of all this is that Google really doesn’t do marketing, and nor does Microsoft. By this I mean marketing that puts the customer in the driving seat (pull marketing) rather than old style push marketing. This is unlikely to change very fast so 2007 is likely to be an extension of recent trends. Google will continue to benefit from its past momentum and Microsoft will struggle to keep up.

Relevant: Search Engines really are different – just like detergents

Does Edelman Really Understand The Blogosphere?

Mitch Joel is concerned that Edelman’s Guide To The Global Blogosphere (PDF 40 pages) seems questionable since it completely omits any mention of Canada. I can relate to that. However I think there may be a more fundamental gap in Edelman’s understanding. No, I’m not referring to the unfortunate Edelman adventure with Flogs for their client, Wal-Mart. What is of more concern is the underlying assumption of their Corporate Guide to the Global Blogosphere. You can get a hint of this in the subtitle: the new model of peer-to-peer communications.

You could get the impression that the Blogosphere is now the only cyber-space that’s involved in peer-to-peer communication. The Blogosphere is certainly very powerful, particularly given the search engine visibility of blog posts and the instant visibility of new blog posts through news feeds. .. and yes it does encourage horizontal communications. However let’s not forget the traditional Web and regular business websites. Somehow the two have got to interconnect and interrelate. Whether you call it slogging or some other name, you won’t get the right answer unless you consider both.

Not BrinBoost – I Should Have Said BrainBoost

The term BrinBoost I recently coined is unlikely to go anywhere. I suggested that if Brinboost had been used instead of PageRank, then the Web would be a much better place. Interestingly a Google search for BrinBoost doesn’t give any useful references but does query whether BrainBoost might have been more appropriate. It’s a search engine from Answers.com and I really find it gives some useful answers, when you have a question. I’ve even added it to my search engine toolbar in Firefox.

Since Google Answers is no longer active, I suggest you may wish to try out BrainBoost. At the least, it’s a very catchy name.

Has Wikipedia gone "No Follow"?

There’s a thread on the DigitalPoint Forums asking “Wikipedia gone No Follow?” I assume the contributors have done some checking but it certainly doesn’t seem to be happening on all pages as yet. If it were, I think it would be an excellent move on Wikipedia’s part. If you’re motivated to edit an entry and you get some traffic by the excellence of what you wrote, well so be it. It certainly works for me.

In a sense, Wikipedia is correcting the fallacy in the whole Google PageRank approach. It’s like Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. There are some things you can’t measure. If you try to measure them then they’re not the same. Once Google says inlinks will boost a web page’s relevancy, then of course everyone, often supercharged with dumb computer programs, generates as many inlinks as they can.

If Google had been smart they would have kept PageRank as a corporate secret like the KFC or Coca Cola secret recipes. It’s a great principle provided you don’t tell anyone about it. So they should have gone public with the BrinBoost, naming it after the other founder. The BrinBoost would be a measure of the value of the outbound links or outlinks you put on a webpage. If everyone thought that the BrinBoost was the key factor they would be motivated to improve the quality of what they write.

You could even have a BrinBoost ‘thermometer’ with BBs from 0 to 9. They could then have devoted say 5% of their staff to supporting the BrinBoost approach.

They wouldn’t abandon the PageRank thinking of course but it would be buried within those 100 factors they use for assessing relevance. This secret would be known to only a few high priests within the Googleplex. So they’d have the best of both worlds. They in fact would have improved relevancy since people would not be trying to create all those irrelevant inlinks. The PageRank approach would work even better. Who knows Yahoo! and MSN/Live might even have been unaware of the Google secret weapon.

Ah well, it’s too late now and we’ve all got to suffer. Perhaps that “No Follow” approach is something Wikipedia should adopt. If only all the search engine spiders obey, it would clean things up enormously.

Slogging For The Long Tail

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of the Wired magazine, introduced the notion of the Long Tail in a book that appeared last year.

He suggested that most markets were not mass markets where customers largely had similar tastes. In a mass market, if you did a distribution pattern of customer preferences, you would find them all grouped together in those bell curves that sociologists love to talk about. Instead he suggested that many markets had consumers whose tastes varied widely with no clear groupings. He likened this to the long tail of a statistical distribution as shown below.

Another way of thinking about this is that the market is made up of very many micro-markets, each with different tastes. The way microbrewers survive and grow by supplying their own specific niches is often quoted as an example of this.

Anyone who has looked at the visitor traffic to most business websites can confirm this long tail phenomenon. Visitors coming via search engines are looking for all kinds of keyword variants. It is often said that Google is particularly useful in helping all these different visitors in the long tail to find exactly what they’re looking for. Indeed there’s even a variant of the Google search engine that is specifically designed to help these long tail searches.

If you’re selling something where your prospects are on the long tail, how can you ensure your website gets on to their radar screens. One important tool here is a business blog. As Lee Odden has pointed out, there are many SEO (search engine optimization) benefits with blogs. The nature of a blog, which creates many inter-related web pages, is particularly visible for these long tail searches.

One way is to make that blog a seamless and integral part of your website in what has been called a Slog. If you’re looking for those rare customers that are to be found out on that long tail, then slogging may well be your best approach.

Related: Slogging For Luxury Villas

Will Google Start Marketing?

Marketing often gets a bad rap. It sometimes is described as ways of manipulating customers so that they buy products they don’t really need. Surely Google’s Do No Evil would not prevent them marketing. Let’s be clear: the existence of bad drivers doesn’t mean we should all give up driving. Equally the existence of bad marketers doesn’t mean Google should give up on marketing.

Marketing in its most useful sense is the process whereby suppliers determine the true needs of their customers. They then use that information to satisfy those needs in the best way possible. Done correctly, marketing can create win/win situations for both suppliers and their customers. It’s all about being customer-centric rather than product-driven.

That’s not to say that product-driven companies like Microsoft or Google do not produce good products. Apply enough money and talent and good products should result. However they will not be as appropriate as they could be to meet customer needs if customers aren’t part of the dialogue.

That dialogue process can be very well served by the blogging process if senior management is self-confident enough to allow it. Of course the Titanic cannot turn on a dime. A huge organization does not change culture in months but rather in years. CRM Magazine suggests how it can be done in an article: A New Marketing Medium – Blogging allows marketers to start conversations with prospects and customers. See how they describe the effect on Microsoft:

Robert Scoble was blogging about Microsoft independently and the company, rather than shutting him down, recognized him as an authoritative voice, which gave him the freedom to be effective. “Blogging is the best relationship-building device I’ve ever seen. It lets Microsoft have a human face other than Bill’s [Gates] and Steve’s [Balmer], but it also gives customers a way to find people who are working on a product,” Scoble says. “In the old world you didn’t know anyone important would read your feedback. [Now,] product managers use it to gauge how important a new feature will be. It’s a new way to get feedback. I’ve had a lot of people say it’s changed their view of Microsoft and how evil we are.”

Contrast that with the somewhat surprising Google decision to close down Google Answers recently as described by David Sarokin, one of the researchers, as described in an article, “Google Answers is Dead! Long Live Google Answers!“, which appears in today’s issue of the Free Pint Newsletters. An extract shows his view of what happened.

Google made a mistake
It all comes back to marketing. I believe the market for Answer-style services is huge. ..

So what was the problem with Google Answers. People ready and willing to pay for reliable information simply didn’t know where to turn to obtain it. Everyone knew how to ‘Google’, but hardly anyone knew how to ‘Google Answers’. And for some inexplicable reason, Google made it increasingly more difficult to find GA. The service seemed doomed by its own invisibility.

Google may possibly be a very open community within the walls of the Googleplex. However there is very limited dialogue with its customers and prospects. Now even Googlers are questioning this wall of silence. Nathan Weinberg discusses the problem in a recent post, Can Google Get More Bloggers In 2007? Time Magazine nominated You (that is all of us) as the Person of the Year in 2006. It shouldn’t be a hard sell to persuade Google to talk to the Person of the Year.