Daniel Schulman

I just got back from PubCon 2008 in Las Vegas where I went to a very good session on Duplicate content.

The information on identifying duplicate content, the problems of duplicate content, and dealing with duplicate content was very thorough and presented very clearly. The main issue I had, though, was what was being referred to as duplicate content was mostly not what I would call duplicate content.

Much of the presentations dealt with spidertraps, useless parameters on URL’s, lack of a preferred domain (i.e www or no www), etc. In other words, situations where different URL’s load the exact same webpage. If there is not one and only one URL for a web page, though, I would refer to this as a lack of canonical URL problem.

This got me to thinking then what is all that stuff that I do call duplicate content such as:

• syndicated articles on different web sites with different templates
• overlapping product or category descriptions where the writer only changes a few words here or there
• poorly implemented A/B testing that lets multiple versions of a page get indexed

In other words, situations where page content was close-enough to trigger a search engine’s duplicate content penalty. Ironically, though, none of these situations are exact 100% page duplicates.

I came to the conclusion that if content is exactly the same, one most likely has a canonical URL problem; if content is close but not exact, it is a duplicate content problem.

I am not sure if this distinction is useful. Certainly, the problems of lack of canonical URL’s and duplicate content are the same. However, I think they might have different sources and subsequent different solutions.

Tagged web stats packages such as Google Analytics, WebTrends, and Coremetrics, are superior to their earlier server logfile stat packages in almost every way: richer data, easier maintenance, interoperability with other software packages, etc. Sure when the tag approach first started appearing on the scene, people were hesitant about installation issues — “You mean I have to modify every single page on my website!?!” Heck, I remember a meeting years ago when I explained to the Coremetrics founders how a Perl hacker could quickly write a script to add their JavaScript tags to all the files in a directory.

Installation issues largely turned out to be a red herring. People quickly came to understand that if it was hard to tag every page, it pointed to larger problems with the website’s information architecture. For modern web development with content management systems, templates, include files, wrappers, MVC architectures, or what have you, modifying every page on a website is almost too easy.

Still there is one area where logfile stats packages such as Analog, AwStats, and Webalizer, surpass their tagged counterparts — reporting server status codes. Was that page redirect a SEO-friendly moved permanently 301 or a nasty moved temporary 302? While answering this question is simple using a logfile stats package, it requires a bit of coding gymnastics for tagged packages. Since the server request for the originating page does not get delivered there is nowhere for the JavaScript tracking tag to be placed. If you are worried about search engine optimization (SEO), do no let out-of-sight become out-of-mind. Check your page redirects every month or so and after every major site redesign. Read the rest of this post »

Probably the most popular post on this blog to date is the one where I likened CitySearch to the mafia.

Local.com, though, has risen to levels of extortion. In comparison, CitySearch is just a school bully extorting lunch money. Here’s the story:

One of my clients on a fairly regular basis receives some really really poor local reviews. I mean they start with, “DON’T HIRE … ” For the most part, these reviews are unjust in that the nature of my client’s business is they deal with some fundamentally unhappy people. We also receive really poor reviews from people who are obviously competitors. It is just the way things are in this industry.

As an online marketer I endeavor to get poor reviews removed. I have had some fair amount of success because most of these reviews are so over-the-top they clearly violate posting policies of Yelp, Yahoo Local, and other local search sites.

However, the bigger problem is with the review feeds. Yelp in particular has setup a bunch of partnerships that allow their reviews to appear on other websites. One of these is local.com. Now when I go look at my client’s profile page’s at local.com, I see reviews attributed to Yelp that were removed 3,4, or even more 6 months ago.

When I contacted local.com, I was first told that they have no control over the Yelp reviews appearing on their website. Wow! local.com is a publicly traded company, and they do not control their own website.  Seems a bit on the crazy side to me. I push a little more and find out that if I only upgrade my listings for many thousands of dollars a year, my client’s listing pages will be regenerated without the old Yelp reviews. Ah, the sweet sweet sounds of extortion.

Clearly, I am not going to contribute to the welfare of such an unethical company (ok, I might if I thought there was some positive ROI to be had), so I push a little further. I am now told that I can request my listings to be deleted entirely. Sounds like a good plan - I encourage everyone to do the same.

BTW, I also left a review of local.com on local.com at http://www.local.com/details/908909/irvine-ca/blocalcomb-corporation.aspx. It will be interesting to see which gets removed first.

I now have about a decade of experience providing various Internet services, consulting on websites, and making my own websites. Through these endeavors, I’ve made various small impacts on people’s lives:

• I’ve been responsible for tens of thousands of popups asking people if they want to take a survey
• I’ve wholly produced websites that generated hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors
• I’ve consulted on major sites with audiences in the millions of monthly visitors category

When I lived in Los Angeles, I knew lots of people in the entertainment industry. Whether a lowly PA who fetches coffee, a screenwriter, an actor, or a member of the crew, when I was with someone in the industry and we met someone new, the first question after what you do, would invariably be have you ever worked on something I’ve might have seen?

You can jsut imagine what use they might put this knowledge to. They get hoem from work and tell their significant other, “Honey, you won’t believe it but I met someone who does lighting on Seinfeld today.” Even the most casual of connection to the industry becomes an amusing story.

Now in my 10 years of working on websites big and small, nobody has ever asked me have you ever worked on a website I might have visited. When I mention this fact to people, I get back comments like “of course not, who cares.” I realize nobody cares, but I think that is interesting in its own right. It leads me to the question of this post, Why is the Internet so boring?

There are a lot of Internet cheerleaders out there. These have come and gone over time from RedHerring to Techcrunch. They like to point to all their site visitors and lively discussions to underscore how sexy the Internet really is. Still, though, is there any mass market here? Are these just the same people talking amongst themselves?

Now if you’ve gotten this far, you ar ewelcome to tell people that you read a blog post today by someone who worked on …

I’m in fabulous Las Vegas for this year’s Pubcon! One of the great activities is blogger’s night out. Joe Morin arranged for free tickets to some of the top show’s in Vegas. The idea being that bloggers go see the shows, bloggers blog about the shows, the shows get some ePublicity. Hey lookee me! I am blogging about the free show I went to see - Blue Man Group (I almost wrote “The Blue Man Group” but according to the digital press kit I received, that’s a no-no).

Now if you want my review of a Blue Man Group (not the) , it is kind of hard to say without knowing more about your likes and dislikes. It is hard to say bad things about Blue Man Group - they are so into what they are doing, seem to be having such a good time, it is really infectious. Still, though, there is not all that much variety to the act. I’d say if you have the opportunity go see them - I enjoyed the show - but I don’t see a need to see them a second time.

Ok, enough of my non-committal review. Let’s get down to serious matters … will Google still love me in the morning? Now I know a bunch of you crazies are thinking maybe Matt Cutts was at the show and I did something inappropriate (know to happen in Vegas). That is not the case. In case you missed it, I’ll do it again, my link to Blue Man Group didn’t have no stinkin’ rel-nofollow.

Now I am no expert on these matters, but if I was given a free ticket to an expensive show with the understanding that I would blog about it that seems to fit Google’s definition of a paid review. Sure there is a long history of entertainment shows of all stripes providing free opening-night tickets to traditional media with the understanding that they would review the show, but I am just a blogger.

Maybe, though, I’ll skate by since I disclosed the ticket was given to me in exchange for this post. Maybe I’ll skate by because I also gave other people straight links. Maybe I’ll skate by because I’m under the radar. Maybe I’ll skate by because I’ll edit this post and add nofollow.

The rumors are TRUE – I am now officially a Google Advertising Professional.

What does this actually mean? Not a whole heck of a lot, but I do now have access to $100 Google AdWords credits which I can apply to new accounts. If you are interested in starting to market your business with Google AdWords and are looking for external management, give me a shout out.

In an earlier post, I looked at the problems of tracking delayed conversions due to complex offerings, long sales cycles, and offline conversion.

Microsoft’s Ian Thomas has an excellent April 13, 2007 post on methods for allocating return when multiple referrers exist. His offering goes a long way towards helping to understand return with complex offerings and long sales cycles.

He identifies 4 revenue allocation strategies that are currently being used and 2 others that are more complicated but might do a better job of modeling reality:

Current Strategies
‘In visit’ allocation
Last marketing source
First marketing source
Simple shared allocation

Possible Strategies
Age-based shared allocation
Age and channel-based shared allocation

The current strategies are fairly self-explanatory. The simple shared allocation justs gives each referral source an average credit. For example, if a $100 sale had four referrals (such as a email campaign, a paid directory, and two pay-per-clicks), each would be credited with producing $25 of revenue.

Where the post really kicks into high gear is when Ian beguns to discuss what is possible by allocating based upon age and/or channel. These strategies involve the estimation of influence curves to model how marketing effect decays over time and varies across channel. For example, you might feel that with your product any impression over 30 days old is worthless, so the curve would be asymptotic at 30 days (approaching zero influence).

While the math is better left for computers, the main notion is that a marketing source gets less credit the further back in time it is. Adding in channel factors would affect the maximum influence each source could have. For example, you might feel a paid directory listing with copious amounts of information has more engagement than a pay-per-click ad. Consequently, you might set immediate influence of the directory higher, or alternatively, have the influence decay slower.

I’ve been trying out Google Audio Ads for one of my clients the last couple of weeks. In this post I’ll describe my experiences with Google’s vendor marketplace. In another post, I will write about how the campaign is going.

The first thing I find interesting is that the system is called “Audio Ads” instead of radio. I wonder if they are planning on offering ad services for podcasts or Internet radio using the same system.

Google offers a RFQ system (Request for Quote) called the Ad Creation Marketplace to help get newbies find vendors to prepare professional radio ad spots. For some reason, the Ad Creation Marketplace is linked in the submenu of Campaign Management, but it is nowhere to be found from the new Audio Ads tab.

Read the rest of this post »

I recently ran afowl of the Microsoft’s robotic crawler for their AdCenter. I had search phrases that had been in the system for almost a year suddenly rejected. Here’s the sequence of events

1. I added a single new term to my client’s account
2. Their robot went out and scanned the landing page
3. My newly added phrase was rejected for “Website contains prohibited content“
4. I scratched my head, wondered if I had somehow input the target url with a typo leading to a porn site, tested the target url, all was fine
5. Called AdCenter Support. Not a bad experience - no endless IVR system, got to a real person quickly who was friendly and efficient. He told me my phrase looked ok and he would appeal it form me and call me the next day.
6. The next day, the newly added phrase is now activated but all of previously accepted phrases are now rejected for “Website contains prohibited content“

Well I again called support and the agent this time told me what was happening. The landing page contained some images with a filename of “bullets” that I had inherited from the original designer. At some point, I had added in alt text so the page would validate. Not being very creative, I used “bullets” also as the alt text. The code looked like

Ok, not the greatest bit of HTML coding but pretty basic.

Apparently, since I had the word “bullets” in my code the AdCenter crawler decided I was some type of arms dealer which violates their site policy. This came about even though nowhere on the page, in the title tag, or in the metatags was there any term associated with weapons.

While I am not sure I agree or disagree with their policies, this is just bad customer service. Why does failing their crawler in a non-obvious case reject previously approved phrases? Shouldn’t this automatically go to a human editor first? This penny-pinching procedure ends up costing Microsoft more money. My terms are offline for awhile not generating clicks, and they have to spend a bunch of expensive customer service time on the phone with me. Even when the problem will get resolved, I will be left with another bad feeling about AdCenter.

I asked the customer support agent what will happen if I add more phrases to my account. She told me that they will likely re-classify my customer’s site as inapprorpriate and reject all my keywords, but no to worry we can always go through the appeal process again.

In a recent highly-digged rant Sugarrae, an SEO consulatant, went off on MerchantCircle. While some of what she said was accurate, her venom certainly made for all of it being fun reading. One thing that caught my eye was her characterization of MerchantCircle as “the mafia of business listings on the web.”

Hey, people are saying bad things about you, and we’re letting them. And we’re making sure they get publicity. If you want protection, it will cost you a fee each month

Her point was that MerchanCircle was strong-arming merchants into signing up to remove bad reviews. Since MerchantCircle only allows users to remove reviews posted directly on their service (not for example ones from Yahoo Local that they scrape) and there are no MerchantCircle reviews until someone does do a free sign-up, her mafioso statements were more clever than true.

However, I believe I have discovered the real mafia of business listings on the web and they go by the name of CitySearch. Apparently under some new scheme paying merchants have tools to respond to poor reviews whereas merchants who never chose to be listed do not.

Wait! you say, “that’s hardly threatening to burn down your store.”

True enough, it is a very weak form of protection. But there’s more … I’ve been speaking with an Account Manager who cold-called me for one of my clients. When he asked me to pay money to promote my client’s listing, I replied, “why would I want to do that when there is a bad review on it.” I went on to explain that we have been working for several months to get the review removed as it clearly violates CitySearch’s guidelines. He told me, he would see about getting it remove for me.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, I again receive a phone call from the Account Manager. He told me he was unsuccessful in getting the review removed. However, if I were to become a paying customer, they would remove it. When I uproariously complained about their mafia-tactics (ok, it was actually pretty timid — I’m no Sugarrae), he patiently explained how busy they were in reviewing reviews and naturally paying customers get a higher priority.