The ever changing Google SERPs showed me at the end of last week a new way of presenting blog and forum posts.  This is genuinely helpful.  I havent seen it since, but if you enlarge the image below by clicking on the image you will see an addition piece of text like.

“4 posts – 2 authors – Last post: 12 Mar 2007”

You dont see many personal blogs in the SERPs, and by definition you need at least two ‘authors’ to be a multi-person blog and forum.  It seems the Google has that info and even wants to share it now.

Take a look for yourself.

Tags: Blogs, google, SERPs

Those helpful folk at Google have written a really simple and easy to follow PDF to explain the basics of SEO and how to do this on a small site.  It is worth a read.  Here is a link to download their file. (549kb)

You might want to compare this to my article about common SEO mistakes.

Here are some other Google articles 

• Explaination of how to understand the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) >>
• How to create a custom 404 >>
• How Google deals with non text assets on the page >>
• Advice on creating search engine friendly URLs >>
• Advice on dynamic pages >>
• Content analysis & sitemap detail feedback in their webmaster tools >>

Tags: 101, google, How-to, SEO

his is my essay plan on what I would put in a site audit.  Obviously there are extra bits that you may need depending on the type of site you are working on.  But this is meant to be a kind of generic framework.

Three main categories for any analysis

• Technical Spec of site
• The site itself
• External SEO

These blend into this report format / essay plan below. So, here goes…..

SE Index visibility by Engine
Look at the what each of the main SE’s have on your site(s) and compare this to what they should have !

• Observations / Duplications / URLs / Session ID’s etc
• Tech issues, clitches, err
• Comments between G, Y and M.
• Use of Google’s Webmaster Central etc

Site architecture
How is the site organised, how the site all links up.  Can you find everything if you dont have JS enabled and this includes deep content on SERPS or through refinements

• Structure of domains and folders
• Static pages
• Search results, refinements and pagination
• URL structure – capitalisation and inconsistencies
• Directories versus Search results navigation
• Effectively site map pages

Site link analysis
Quantity, Quality, Depth. And internally, can you find everything in a logical and consistent way?

• External links, Where do they go to? Anchor text of those links
• Internal linking, Crumb trials, On page, Anchor text review,Footers and Headers

Keyword ranking and optimisation
What are you targeting and is the optimsiation up to it?

• Ranking report summary, current position
• Observations , head body tail, general KW distribution.
• By Search Engine
• Compared to competitor(s) performance
• And how the keywords fit in the site structure and linking

Onsite optimisation

• Metas, Title, Description,  Best practice and Summary from GWC about duplicates, By key templates etc
• Markup audit of H1, h2.  Quality CSS
• Error handling protocols including errors and genuine site changes, adding or removing pages!

Summary of key issues with solutions

Next steps and Recemendations

- – end – -

All you need to do now – is take the recemmendations and turn that into your action plan.

Hopefully you wil get the technical resource or/and the biz resources before your competitors gain too much ground.

Tags: 101, audit, How-to, SEO

Another new search engine was passed around the office today. Its a visual based search results. It is slick. Its looks great. And is easy to use. I guess if you are going to try to take on the established players you are going to have to out do them. This is a partial search grab. I would urge you to go and play with searchme.com

Now the professional bit. The results are very very, oh so very US focused at this stage. Apart from that and you like the Mac style user interface then you might like it. Over the coming months, we will see if they get any market share.

The techie bit. If you want to control their spider it is User-Agent: Charlotte.

Tags: Search Engines

The problem with global marketing is the sheer number of different search engines out there around the world. And, some people expect me to know them all. So, over time I have been collecting a list and I thought I would share.

I will keep adding as I come across sites. But if you have any send them to me and I will credit you with the find.

General – most countries
• Google
• Altavista
• Yahoo
• Yahoo Groups
• DMOZ
• MSN
• AllTheWeb
• Teoma
• GoClick
• Miva
• go2net.com
• Kanoodle.com
• Search123.com
• 7metasearch.com
• SearchFeed.com
• Amazon.com / A9.com
• Alltheinternet.com
• Advancedsearchbar.com
• Snap
• Mysearch.com
• Alexa
• HotBot
• Ask.com
• Netscape
• SearchIt
• Wisenut
• Lycos
• SiteSearch
• Wisenutbot.com
• RealSearch.net
• Findtarget.com
• Peoplepc.com
• Towersearch.com
• AOL
• Freefind.com
• Entireweb.com
• Livesearching.com
• Scrubtheweb.com
• all-websearch.com
• Mamma
• Searchhippo.com
• Deepindex.com
• Comcast.net
• Ixquick.com
• Searcheurope.com
• ExactSeek.com
• Information.com
• Dogpile
• Izito.com

Netherlands
• MSN.nl
• Vinden.nl
• Wanadoo.nl
• Zoeken.nl
• Kelkoo.nl
• Google.nl
• DeTelefoongids.nl
• Linkotheek.nl
• Linkspot.nl
• Favoos.nl
• Webaapje.com

Norway
• Google.no
• Eniro.no

Sweden
• Google.se
• Sokmotor.biz
• Eniro.se
• MSN.se

Canada
• Msn.ca
• Google.ca
• Netscape.ca

Germany & Austria
• Google.de
• MSN.de
• Lycos.de
• Google.at
• Kelkoo.de
• Fireball.de

France
• Google.fr
• MSN.fr
• Sympatico.msn.ca
• Lycos.fr
• Aol.fr
• Kelkoo FR
• Voila.fr
• Excite.fr
• MSN.be (french)
• Kelkoo.be
• Yahoo.fr

Belgium
• Google.be
• MSN.be
• search-belgium

Switzerland
• Google.ch
• MSN.ch

Denmark
• Google.dk
• MSN.dk
• Eniro.dk

Finland
• Google.fi

UK
• Google.co.uk
• Google.ie
• MSN.co.uk
• Searchanything.co.uk
• Ask.co.uk
• Kelkoo.co.uk
• Blueyonder.co.uk
• UKirectory.co.uk
• Excite.co.uk
• Wanadoo.co.uk
• Yahoo.co.uk

Italy
• Google.it
• MSN.it
• Lycos.it
• Supereva.it
• Yahoo.it

Czech Republic
• Seznam.cz
• Centrum.cz
• Atlas.cz
• Quick.cz
• Zoohoo.com
• Toplist.cz
• 1.cz
• Centrum.cz (Morfeo)
• Volny.cz
• Centrum.cz (Fulltext)

Russia
• Yandex.ru
• Google.ru

Spain & Mexico
• Google.es
• MSN.es
• Google.com.mx
• latam.msn.com
• t1msn.com.mx

Israel
• Google.co.il
• MSN.co.il

South Africa
• Google.co.za
• MSN.co.za

India
• Google.co.in
• MSN.co.in

Japan
• Yahoo JP
• MSN JP
• Google JP
• excite.co.jp
• goo.ne.jp

Australia
• NineMSN.com.au
• girl.com.au
• femail.com.au
• Citysearch.com.au
• Ebay.com.au
• Seek.com.au
• Anzwers.net
• Anzwers.com.au
• AOL.com.au
• Yahoo Australia
• Google.com.au

New Zealand
• Google.co.nz
• XtraMSN.co.nz
• Yahoo Australia & New Zealand

Others
• Google.mu
• Google.lt
• Google.ae
• Google.hn
• Google.as
• Google.cl
• Google.lu
• Google.co.ve
• Google.co.vi
• Google.co.kr
• Google.ro
• Google.co.id
• Google.co.hu
• Google.sk
• Google.pl – Poland
• Google.pt – Portugal
• Google.co.th
• Google.hk – Hong Kong
• Google.com.br
• Google.com.ar

Tags: Directories, Search Engines

Today there has been a lot of notes about a new search engine launched today called Cuil pronounced “COOL” !!

We will see. Not too convinced at this stage about the quality of the results. I do like the seach refinement widget on the top right hand side. It on occassion gives some good alternative searches. But in its teething it gives you searches with no results.

Currently no traffic to any of my sites – but we will see.

It would be nice to add some competition to the UK searchscape.

Tags: Cuil, Search Engines