SEO Archive

I feel for Mahalo founder and CEO Jason Calacanis this past week. He finishes his Launch conference (my recap), heads to the afterparty and probably gets 10,000 text messages because that was just about the time that Google announced their algorithm change. Assuming Jason wasn’t briefed by Google about the change, that really is pretty horrible timing and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, even a guy from the B-line (I am D-line).

This afternoon Jason and Mahalo president Jason Rapp sent out a mass email noting that, based on the Google changes, they will be reducing Mahalo staff headcount immediately by 10%. Here are a few key points directly from Jason and Jason:

• (re: the google change) Despite those efforts, unfortunately, the Google changes have led to a
  significant dip in our traffic and revenue. It’s hard not to be disappointed since we’ve been spending millions of
  dollars on producing highly professional content.
• Today we have eliminated a handful of positions in the company (about 10%), and we’ve cut a number of non-essential services we provide internally. In addition, we are re-evaluating our freelance content
  production, pausing it in the near term and determining how to best produce the high-quality educational material we aspire to in the long run. We are not, however, diminishing our video production efforts.
• Interestingly, while the search side of Google has impacted us negatively, Google’s video unit (YouTube) continues to be our strong partner, encouraging us to ramp up our video production and publish even more of our expert video lessons with them.

What’s really interesting to me is that I remember when Mahalo first launched, Jason told me numerous times he didn’t care about Google because he was going to build loyal users who would just come directly to Mahalo (e.g. similar to how we just go to TripAdvisor to look up a hotel).

Continue reading “Mahalo Reduces Headcount by 10% After Google Algo Change” »

We’ve written about a variety of baby social networks including Kidmondo, babyZbook and LilGrams. I had a chance to chat with Adam Katz back at the Personal Democracy Forum in NYC. Adam is hte co-founder of another baby/children social network named TotSpot. Below is a discussion we had more recently about TotSpot.

Allen: Can we start with a brief bio about yourself?

Adam Katz: My co-founder, Michael Broukhim, and I, graduated from college in 2007. At school, we were both involved in a number of different "social media" endeavors. Mike was the Editorial Chair of the Crimson, the school paper, and he led the editorial board’s move online introducing blogs and partnering with more than 20 schools on a wikitorial. I ran a company called CampusTap (sold to CoreObjects) that was a student blogging / campus activity aggregation platform.

Allen: How do you describe the Totspot service?

Adam: TotSpot is a place for parents to publish a page about their kids and share with family and friends. It’s part online baby journal, parent scrapbook, and social network.

Allen: Why did you decide to start Totspot?

Adam: Both Mike and I have adorable little cousins named Max – Mike’s cousin is now about 6 months-old and mine is 3 years-old – and we both have very tight-knit extended families so that is a lot of sharing (both online and off) that goes on. We both were disappointed with the existing tool-set and thought there must be a better vehicle for parents to share content with family and friends. There is a real desire among families for a safe, secure, and simple place to gather everything (photos, videos, journal entries).

Allen: What’s the team look like?

Adam: We’re nine people – myself, Mike, a team of 5 incredibly talented developers, and two amazing Moms – Janice and Kelcey who assist us in community management and outreach and product dev.

Allen: How are you marketing Totspot? Since the site is all behind a login, are you looking at any search-engine related traffic?

Adam: To date, TotSpot has grown almost entirely organically (definitely been helped by some really positive earned media). We’re up to more than 10,000 members and it’s been pretty viral – on TotSpot parents can make their children friends with other children, can invite grandparents and cousins to contribute, so there is some real sociability. To date, we have very little search engine traffic and that’s something that is (as you note) inherent in the nature of the product. As the TotSpot community develops, we’ll be adding some stuff that is more SEO-friendly.

Allen: How do you compare Totspot to other baby startups like Littlegrams and Kidmondo and larger sites like MayasMom?

Adam: I think TotSpot is pretty unique. Unlike a lot of the other parenting-sites that are information-centric, editorial content-centric, we’re focused on parent/family media sharing and unlike a lot of the "record-keeping" type sites we’re social (family can contribute) and I think a lot more fun. In addition, at a very practical level, the storage space we offer each user is (literally) 20x what our competitors offer and we’re the only ones that emphasize data portability.

Allen: What’s the technology look like that powers Totspot?

Adam: TotSpot is built on Ruby on Rails.

Allen: Can you explain your business model?

Adam: We will have four revenue streams – 1) Premium – We’ll offer some power-user tools such as HD Video for a small additional subscription fee. 2) Advertising – We’re going to do sponsorships, all very tasteful, trying to avoid anything on the children’s pages. 3) Virtual Goods – Gifts, e-cards, and things like that. 4) Printing – Our users will be able to take their TotSpot pages and turn them into beautiful personalized babybooks.

Allen: Do you find that being located outside of the Valley is an advantage, a disadvantage or neither?

Adam: I’m not sure. I haven’t yet run (or been employed by) a valley company so I can’t really speak to that experience but I do think being in smaller communities (right now we’re in NYC and Boston) can be helpful – we’ve gotten to know a lot of great, successful people in a relatively short amount of time. I think the biggest challenge has been finding talent, but, my hunch is that that challenge exists everywhere.

Allen: What’s coming next from Totspot?

Adam: In the next few weeks, we’ll be publicly rolling out the TotSpot API (we’re already using it internally). It’s part of our company’s total commitment to Data Portability. We have a "Your Child, Your Content," policy which means that everything a parent puts into TotSpot they should be able to take out, take with them, and use with other services. Our API is a critical step in that effort. Parents will be able to allow external applications to communicate with TotSpot (both input/output) and easily manage the way their data is being shared/used in order to ensure privacy and safety. We hope parents use TotSpot to establish their child’s online identity and then plug external services into that.

Allen: What tips do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Adam: Talk to as many smart people as you can – not just the ones with the flashy success. It’s often those who have had challenging experiences that provide the most insight. I bet that’s a bit cliché – but it’s still true.

Last week marked the apparent end of one man’s blogging career. Most believe that it is a hoax but I know that this individual would never use trickery or magic potions to get more traffic to his startup. This person has created a mailing list to more effectively communicate with his network. I can’t link to the mailing list because it was capped at 500 1,000 1,100. Steven Hodson has deciphered the email for the rest of us.

I wasn’t planning on posting about this topic but I just received a video from the "blogger king" at the "blogger information network" - apparently there is a program to actually effectively quit blogging. Anyway have a look below and you decide for yourself. The full email blast is located here.

Search engine Mahalo is changing their payment program to their guides beginning this Monday. Here’s the update from Mahalo, "Beginning Monday, January 14th, we will be assigning smaller dollar amounts to extremely short SeRPs or very fringe topic SeRPs that aren’t of high priority, and likewise, we will be assigning higher prices to SeRPs in especially difficult verticals or which are in high demand."

Makes sense to do the higher priority pages first, pay more for them and capitalize on the SEO referral traffic while the term is hot. When a story comes out, if Mahalo can get to it first, they might immediately rank 1st in Google based on the timing-changes Google has made. No information was provided on what the actual dollar amounts will change to – we will learn about those next week. Mahalo is also reporting today that they have passed the 25,000 search engine result pages mark. Congrats to the team including Sean Percival!

Let’s take yet another look at the SEO play topic. Anyone remember Jason Calacanis saying "SEO is Shit" at SES Chicago just over a year ago? Anyone remember Jason stating here on CN that "If Google wants to index us well that’s fine with us, but our model is not based on being well indexed in Google or Yahoo." He then further stated his views on SEO here. I still stand firm that a percentage of traffic on Mahalo is actually employee/guide traffic.

Marshall Kirkpatrick is loving the Mahalo noting, "I find Mahalo a good place to start learning about many topics". Today we learn from Hitwise that Mahalo traffic is growing nicely. Hitwise has put together some charts and stats about Mahalo that show a great growth curve. At the end of the post, they note, "Mahalo receives most of its traffic from Search Engines (76% last week)". How could this NOT be a SEO play? If Jason was serious about not being interested in search engine referral traffic, then he could easily block it. Let’s not even touch the internal promotion of articles to the social news sites.

Hats off to the Mahalo team for their early success. I just hope that Jason will admit that Mahalo is a SEO play. Sure in 10 years Mahalo might not need Google/Yahoo to drive traffic, but it’s clear today that they do and are maximizing the pages they create to use Google to their advantage. You see, Google changed some of their rankings so that new posts appear at the top even with no inbound links. Mahalo knows this and so if they continue to create pages for the hot terms, then they will rank well. Of course Jason will say that they are creating the pages because his visitors care about that content, but c’mon, let’s speak like they do on 86th street and Bay Parkway Jason.

And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being a SEO play – Wikipedia’s been doing it for years.

Otis over at Simpy asked for someone to pull some charts from Compete so I did. Here are a few samples of Mahalo’s traffic:

Search for Vanessa Hudgens Photos:

Search for Halo Skulls:

And here is a list of the top 25 search engine keywords that drive traffic to Mahalo:

It’s fine to be an SEO play – just apologize for calling it shit and dead. Come out of the SEO closet Jason, we will all love ya a bit more.

Reports from Andy Beard, Problogger and a variety of other sites indicate that Google is shuffling their Pagerank scores. While some have believed Pagerank to be dead, many sites and text link companies use it as a basis for pricing their ads. The big sites hit were Engadget (PR7 to 5), Problogger (PR6 to 4) and Copyblogger (PR6 to 4). Brian Clark has a funny chat about the change which is worth a read. Brian believes that his drop is not due to selling links (he has never done so) but rather due to a report he published about not relying on Google as a business model.

For sites that have established reputations and traffic bases, a movement in their Pagerank probably won’t affect them much. A loyal visitor to Engadget isn’t moving to Gizmodo because of the drop.

If the SEOs believe that Google is "attacking" them, will they begin to leave? And if they do leave, will Google feel an earnings hit? Will ad dollars from the SEOs move to Yahoo, Ask, etc?

I have attended the Search Engine Strategies conference many times in multiple cities over the past few years. I have enjoyed attending and think the team at the SES put on a good show. Unlike Jason "I don't reply to emails except to be rude" Calacnis, I don't think search engine optimization is dead (nor do I think it will die anytime soon), but I think it's needing a jolt of new life to revive and move it ahead.

Walking around the expo hall is the same every time. Half of the companies are pushing the same things today that they pushed a year ago, and some even two years ago (and more!). A good percentage of the companies are doing the same thing and many are using other company APIs for their business models. Lastly, most of the presentations and panels are the same. How many times can we listen to a discussion on linkbaiting that does not include anything new? And how disappointing is it to hear about gaming Digg. Eventually customers will wise up to firms that are using social media sites incorrectly to get traffic.

With Google buying DoubleClick this week for $3.1 billion, does this mean that their basic search product is no longer the most important piece in their portfolio? I have heard and reported on many new pieces of technology that Google has produced over the last year. Besides their addition of Google Checkout images, have their been any changes to the search tool?

Is the gaming of the social sites something that SEO firms are advocating because there is no more room left for regular search movement? I have seen many posts on other blogs and SEO sites that really make me wonder. Side note… I do find it interesting and amazing how many take the panel speakers as if they are doing everything legit just because they are on a panel.

So will we see Search Engine Strategies conferences in say 2009 (I am guessing 2008 is already booked). If so, what will they look like? Will the social media sites be the main attractions moving forward? What happens when these no longer generate the traffic they do today because of the seo gaming?

I do a fair bit of organic optimization for my clients and they have seen lots of success but it is becoming more and more difficult as everyone becomes optimized. I look forward to the next generation of search… whether it is from Google or another new player. I also look forward to learning the new techniques that will be needed to get my sites (and my client's sites) to the top.

Just before Christmas, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia announced he was going to create a new search engine for the web – Wikiasari. This piece of news might have slipped under the radar for many people, but people working in the search engine optimisation industry probably didn't sleep well that night.

The end of search engine optimisation?

Wikiasari is a search engine with a twist. It plans to display results based on what humans think are the most important. Yes, that's right, real people!

At the moment, search results are based on complex algorithms. These formulae are closely guarded secrets (or they'd soon be copied) – a bit like the recipe for Coca-Cola. Over the past decade a whole SEO industry has spawned out of the need to skim the tiniest advantage to allow businesses to appear higher up the search results than their competitors. More people finding your website means increased leads and hopefully increased sales. As the saying goes, "If they can't find you on Google, then you might as well not exist".

The way to get to the top of the search rankings has been to optimise your content around keywords (the phrases users type into the Google box to find you) to ensure the 'machines' associate your site with those words.

But if Wikiasari are proposing that humans and not algorithms will decide, then does the whole SEO strategy become moot? After all, why bother optimising your site if ultimately a real person will decide your web ranking? Hmmm… Images of tumbleweeds blowing across a deserted SEO industry…

But SEO already incorporates usability and users' opinions!

So is this the end of SEO? Well, probably not. For years now search engines have understood the importance of getting users' opinions factored in and Wikiasari is just a natural progression of this. Search engines have basically always tried to mimic what users want. For example:

• The number of inbound links a site has plays a major part in its search engine ranking. Every link to your site essentially represents a vote for your website – the more votes (especially from quality sites) the higher in the rankings your site will appear.
• All other things being equal, search engines rank sites with good spelling and grammar higher than those without. This holds true in the real world too – who wouldn't prefer a well written site!?
• Google has its free analytics package, which allows them to take an inside peek to see which sites have the most conversions. It could figure that sites with more conversions are effectively votes for that site by users and should be ranked higher.
• Bookmarking sites (e.g. Digg) are all about user powered content. The community votes for the best sites, with the best ones being promoted to the front page.

Good usability is the key to SEO

Perhaps the search engine algorithms will die a death, perhaps not. Either way, usability is becoming more and more important in sending your site to the top of the search results page. Users' opinions have always been important so the new Wikiasari search engine is just further acknowledgment and Darwinistic evolution.

Ultimately, usability is key to ensuring a good ranking. Concentrate on delivering good usability, employ some basic SEO tactics (such as placing keywords in the page title, headings and links) and the rest will follow naturally. Usability and SEO go hand in hand.

This article was written by Lisa Halabi. She's crazy about web usability and accessibility – so crazy that she's head of usability at usability and accessibility consultancy, Webcredible. She's extremely good at conducting usability website evaluations and carrying out card sorting sessions.