Disqus - Latest Comments for Bill

Re: .com Still Rules

Bill — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:06:00 -0000

Hi Robert,

I've thought of updating my post a few times since I first posted it, and now I don't have to. Thank you for doing so. I know firsthand how much work it was.

There were a lot of questions raised in the comments to my post, and we can't be sure how close these numbers are to the actual number of pages upon these top level domains, but I still think it was an exercise worth doing, and I like your addition of "gainers." Does it signify a tremendous increase in the number of web pages on those tlds, or more pages being indexed by search engines that aren't on .com addresses, or some combination of both?

Nice work, and thanks again.

Re: In Depth: Google BlogSearch | Ranking Blog Documents Patent

Bill — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:46:10 -0000

Nice analysis, Andy.

I hadn't noticed that the filing date of the patent, and the launch date of Google blog search were the same day - great catch.

Google reader may have been one of the things that they had in mind when they were putting the patent together - they should have a much easier time gaining access to subscription numbers from that than from other services not under their control, but who knows for certain.

Re: In Depth: Google BlogSearch | Ranking Blog Documents Patent

Bill — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:46:10 -0000

Re: Top 32 Forms of Linking Payola

Bill — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:25:05 -0000

You liked something they wrote, and wanted to share it with your readers?

Re: Top 32 Forms of Linking Payola

Bill — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 22:25:05 -0000

You liked something they wrote, and wanted to share it with your readers?

Re: Top 32 Forms of Linking Payola

Bill — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 10:09:19 -0000

Maybe 14, Andy, but your introductory paragraph makes it sound a little like all links are payola of one type or another, and sometimes links are just references - not to demonstrate your own authority, but rather to share with your readers something that you've found.

Stephen's first point is a good one, too.

Re: Top 32 Forms of Linking Payola

Bill — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 10:09:19 -0000

Re: Print is back?

Bill — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:34:46 -0000

Hi Lou,

I'm not sure which patent you are referring to with your statement about a patent filed in "1996". Did I miss something, somewhere?

The one that you are writing about in this post was filed in 2006.

Re: Print is back?

Bill — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:46:18 -0000

Hi Lou,

The timing is interesting. I think that if you're going to explore something like print ads, it doesn't hurt to consider other options, too.

The idea of using kiosks, like what is described in the patent application is also explored in another patent application from Google. And we saw Google make an agreement recently to start putting kiosks in gas stations to provide local information and maps.

Hard to tell if more pieces will fall into place, but it is interesting.

Re: The Hardest Part Of Marketing Art

Bill — Fri, 25 May 2007 21:50:46 -0000

Great post, Eric.

The Web is about sharing, and communicating with others. Many artists ignore or misunderstand the framework in which they create their art - and a Web site can be a great framework.

Re: Interview In Leading Search Engine Optimization Blog

Bill — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:06:42 -0000

Hi Eric,

You're welcome. Thank you in return.

It was a real pleasure having the chance to interview you, and learn more about how bands can become more visible to an audience that might be looking for someone like them.

Re: First babies on Friendfeed. Now a 'social' engagement!

Bill — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:12:46 -0000

Hi Charlie,

Thanks. It was great to hear from you today. :)

Kimberly is the love of my life. I'm so glad that I found her.

Re: Local Search Will Be Huge | BPWrap

Bill — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:54:20 -0000

As frustrating as local search is, trying to find local search results in a normal web search can be even more frustrating. The Microsoft patent application illustrates some of the difficulties of trying to understand a location intention in a user's query, but I'm not sure that the method described within the patent application is in place - a search through the live.com SERPS leaves me no reason to believe so.

There is a lot of potential for local search. But I think that there's a lot of work on it that needs to be done before it will begin to reach its potential.

Re: Happy Christmas Greetings To All Our Readers | BPWrap

Bill — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 09:53:53 -0000

Merry Christmas to you and your family, Barry.

I hope that you are all having a wonderful holiday.

Re: AnswerTips Comes To BPWrap, Courtesy of Answers.com

Bill — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:11:59 -0000

Very neat gizmo. I may have to try this out - it may come in really useful on patent related posts with technical language in them.

Thanks for showing this off.

Re: Social Media Marketing (SMM) - the latest Buzz

Bill — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:35:16 -0000

I'm looking forward to participating in the new forum.

Knowing you, Barry, I sure that SMM (the Montreal one) has always been open and thoughtful about the possibilities of social networking. I also suspect that industry support around SMM (the marketing one) is only just catching up. :)

Re: Social Media - Bad News Travels Faster | BPWrap

Bill — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 13:42:22 -0000

I would venture to guess that Lee's post received more traffic because of the omission than it would have otherwise.

And he may have gained some new readers from Cre8asite, too.

A little controversy isn't necessarily always a bad thing.

Re: Google PageRank - Reputation and Relevance | BPWrap

Bill — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:47:23 -0000

Pagerank might be the most well known algorithm, at least by name, in the world. I think that it illustrates how even something like a mathmatical formula can provide a marketing benefit to a company.

It's kind of fun to see ask.com try to do the same thing with their recent string of television commercials about "the algorithm."

Re: Mobile Local Search, the most popular Internet application

Bill — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 11:17:04 -0000

Hi Barry,

Great example with the Italian restaurant with the funny name.

Regretfully, I had that experience a couple of weeks ago. The restaurant is only a couple of months old, has no web site, hasn't been reviewed by the local newspapers, and has no footprints on the web at all. Fortunately for them, word of mouth has drawn customers to their doors.

A client and I have occasional business dinner meetings, and we both wanted to try the new restaurant, which we were both referring to as "the place where Lum's used to be."

Mobile local web search is a transformational technology. Like the radio, the telephone, and television before it, mobile local provides a way to interact with the world in a manner that changes how we do so significantly. I agree completely that it will become the most popular internet application. I think that what we've seen so far from it only scratches the surface of what we will gain from it, too.

Re: Successful Ethical Marketing. Is It Possible?

Bill — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:56:54 -0000

A great example of transparency, of the value of giving, of the importance of ethics in talking to and reaching out to others. I'll agree with Shari that we don't usually associate Jesus with marketing; applying his teachings to our lives and our livelihoods can transform what we do, and how we live and interact with others. Very thoughtful and wonderful to read this morning.

Re: Environmental SEO StumbleUpon Style

Bill — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:48:13 -0000

Thanks, Kimberly. The act of sharing ways to help make the world a better place through sites like SU can help enrich everyone's lives, spread ideas and information that people may not have otherwise seen, and inspire people to take action. I'd like to see more follow your suggestions to use SEO to help make a positive difference as well.

Re: Science for SEO

Bill — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 10:18:21 -0000

I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on science and art in SEO. There's a poetry to your words.

One of the things that makes SEO so challenging, and so enjoyable to me is that it goes beyond how words rank in search engines, to how people read and understand and react to what words you choose as keywords, and what you write, and how you present what you create for your readers.

It is a science in trying to understand those kind of things while also writing something that will rank in search engines, and it is an art in making what you create appealing and engaging.

Re: | Utah Search Engine Optimization | Utah SEO Consultant

Bill — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:42:45 -0000

Hi Jordan,

You took me completely by surprise with this post. Thank you very much for your kind words.

There really are many people who make the search marketing community a great place. It's an honor to be included with Sebastian X and Marious Alexandrou here.

There are a great number of folks who work tirelessly behind the scenes as forum owners and moderators, as insightful and articulate bloggers, as people who make industry conferences run smoothly, as those who act as the social glue for the industry.

There are also the people who give search marketing a good name by showing everyday that SEO and internet marketing can have a positive influence on the livelihoods of site owners, and who don't get the recognition that they deserve.

Those folks are the unsung heros of search marketing, and I'd like to thank them.

Re: Bill Slawski and Kimberly Sitting in a Tree…

Bill — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:01:52 -0000

Thank you, Jordan.

Everytime I talk with Kimberly, when I don't think that it's possible, I fall more deeply for her.

She brings a smile to my heart, laughter to my lips, and poetry to my soul.

Re: Come visit the HP Garage

Bill — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:13:15 -0000

Thank you, Robert.

It was great having the opportunity to see and tour the garage where HP was built.

Anne Mancini did a great job of humanizing and bringing HPs early history to life, and putting the historical importance of the garage into perspective.

Re: Welcome Jeremy Luebke and Scott Woodard!

Bill — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:42:21 -0000

Hey,

Congratulations Scott, Jeremy, and Jordan. Hopefully, Ben will rejoin you, too. I had a chance to spend a little time with Scott and Ben at the last Pubcon, and they are both impressed me as bright, articulate, and very knowledgeable. I'm very much looking forward to future posts at Marketing Pilgrim.

Re: Google Gives Gov’t Top Spot

Bill — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:31:34 -0000

Hi Jordan,

No conspiracy. :)

That looks like a Google Q&A result to me, by both the placement and the way the link is referenced (the "according to").

Same kind of result that you get for a search for something like:

Derek Jeter birthplace

Cheers.

Re: Google Defuses Googlebombs; Does this Change Link Building Practices?

Bill — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:55:56 -0000

Hypertext analysis might treat anchor text as metadata that makes a page being pointed at to be seen as relevant for the anchor text phrase.

An impact of this algorithmic change is that anchor text will no longer be considered as useful meta data if the phrase isn't on the page pointed at, but...

A number of the patent applications written by Google's Anna Patterson on her Phrase Based Indexing talk about using a method like this to eliminate Google bombing. They add that if the phrase used in the anchor text is a "related" phrase that it may still have some impact:

If the anchor phrase A does not appear in the body of URL1 (as in FIG. 8a), then a different step is taken to determine the inlink score. In this case, the indexing system 110 creates a related phrase bit vector for URL1 for phrase A (as if phrase A was present in URL1) and indicating which of the related phrases of phrase A appear in URL1. This related phrase bit vector is then used as the inlink score for the link from URL0 to URL1.

See the section labeled "Document Annotation for Improved Ranking" in Phrase-based indexing in an information retrieval system. Matt Cutts stated that he can't confirm or deny the use of bit vectors like this, in a response to me at Search Engine Land, and it's possible that the method described by Anna Patterson isn't being used. But, it's also possible that it is, and it is worth thinking about and discussing.

Re: SMX London Part 5 - Understanding the Needs of a Searcher

Bill — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 22:34:18 -0000

I think that Gord might have been referring to George Miller's research in The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information. That research has been misapplied by a lot of people over the past 51 years, and continues to be.

Re: What Gives SEO A Bad Name

Bill — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 19:49:34 -0000

Hi Scott,

There are a lot of us in the SEO industry who would be happy to answer a quick question when you see something odd like the result you're pointing out. I'm seeing more than a couple of SEOs who would, in the responses to this post, and showing up in your MyBlogLog widget right now.

Re: BlogRush, You’re Kidding Me

Bill — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:59:52 -0000

I was emailed that my blog had passed their quality guidelines.

I never quite got to the point of installing the widget on my blog either.

Re: Social Search and Why We Should Care: A Chris Sherman Webcast

Bill — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:22:47 -0000

Another aspect of tagging that recent studies have discussed is that the tags used sometimes describe the relationship between what is being tagged, and the person doing the tagging, such as "toread."

Re: Do you know the way to San Jose?

Bill — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:56:59 -0000

Hi Danielle,

It was a pleasure to meet you, also. I'm happy to hear that you had such a good time.

I really like San Jose a lot, too. I found myself looking at the prices of apartments in the City last night.

Hopefully I'll get to see you and Chris again at Pubcon.

Re: Reader Poll: Best Forums for Search Marketing Tips

Bill — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 09:05:24 -0000

Ok, so I'm one of the administrators. But I'm going to list it anyway :)

Cre8asite Forums

Re: Reader Poll: Best Forums for Search Marketing Tips

Bill — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 17:13:34 -0000

No problems, Lee. :)

Re: Reader Poll: Best Forums for Search Marketing Tips

Bill — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 23:21:11 -0000

Be nice to see seorefugee on this poll, too. :)

Re: What Google Can Do To Make The Web Less Of A 'Cesspool'

Bill — Wed, 06 May 2009 01:50:10 -0000

Someday the people at Forbes will figure out search. Maybe. In the meantime, their hubris ("our most prized journalistic institutions.") is good for everyone else who has a clue.