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Google, Underscored URLs Are OK. Also, Thoughts On Hyphenated Domain Names.
July 24, 2007 By Webposition SEO Team
By Scott Goodyear
CNet’s News Blog reports that Google will soon be able to read underscores that separate keywords in a URL. Thus in a URL like somesite.com/sonoma_wine_country.asp, Google will now see these three keywords sonoma, wine, and country as three distinct words rather than one long run on word with underscores in it. This great news for many blog users and further assists web masters when planning to add new content to their sites and deciding on what page names to create.
I would add a semi-related side conversation to this news if you are in the process of buying a domain name…
What about hyphenated domains names? I see quite a lot of real estate sites that have domains similar to portland-oregon-best-home-buys-for-real-estate-today.com (not real, but the format is similar to many real sites). Long and hyphenated domains names do not quite come to mind as easily as short multi word names like bestbuy.com, citysearch.com, cameraworld.com, pyramidbrewing.com, slickdeals.net, etc. While .com is probably the most known and understood domain name extension, and it’s not a bad idea to snap up a good .com, .net, or .org domain, the addition of several underscores or hyphens between keywords is probably not a good idea for all sites.
It’s true that when some one decides to link to your site or a page from your site, they could choose to link like this (fake address for the example but based on this): Matts Cutts has an open call for Google Web Master console feature improvements.
But many web site owners, bloggers, etc. may choose to link to a web site or page using the actual url like this:
Matt Cutts talks about the Google Webmaster console on this page http://www.google-web-master-console.com/blog/webmaster-console-features/
So, in either case, a search engine -may- decide that google, web, master, or console can be used to slightly boost the rankings. If anything this would be a cumulative boost, along with many other factors. Quite a number of affiliate marketers swear by the hyphenation technique because it could help you to not only rank for your domain name but also for keywords that you are probably targeting.
Can you be sure that your site’s visitors will remember to put hyphens in the right places? What if they combine two words that should be separate? Typing in -real-estate- vs. -realestate- could lead them to a competitor. Even if you decide that you will pick up many of the off spellings and variations of your main domain, it seems like you exponentially grow the number domains you’ll need to snap up to protect your main domain from typos and mis-spellings when you go with a hyphenated domain.
What about reputation issues? Domains that have more than 1 or 2 hyphens, look potentially spammy or throw away in nature to visitors and search engines. With out doing anything but looking at the addresses, where do you feel you are more likely to find the real site between these 3: bestbuy.com, best-buy.com, or best-buy-stores-and-sales.com? When discussing this with some of my less internet savvy (but getting smarter all the time) relatives, they point out that they occasionally receive emails that include URLs similar to ebay-customer-service.somerandomcompany.com. They’ve learned, that the URL is probably related to a phishing web site which is trying to con them out of their credit card number or ebay log in. In turn, they tend to stay away from odd looking (hyphenated) domains not only in emails, but also from search engines and web pages.
Need more advice on choosing a domain? I highly recommend two articles from last year, one from Folksonomy.org called “7 Tips for Naming Your Web 2.0 Startup” and one from Planet Ocean called “How URLs Can Affect Top Search Engine Rankings“. From Folksonomy’s article, I have to agree that most sites should avoid domain name hacks like Yahoo’s “Del.icio.us“. From personal experience, when I first started hearing about Del.icio.us, I never seemed to be able to type their domain into a browser on the first try. Trying to look it up in a search engine? Impossible at the time, I would receive annoying search engine responces like “did you mean icon?” when trying to type in parts of the Del.icio.us name with the periods in the wrong places. Annoying as it is, engines try to second guess unique keywords and phrases even if they are within domain names. Months later, Google now associates icio as well as delicious with del.icio.us. As Folksonomy points out, because of issues similar to my own, Yahoo eventually bought just plain delicious.com.
I would add to either of these domain name choosing articles, that you also should take care in inventing words or combining words for your domain name. Perform some searches to see if there are any “did you mean” replies from Google, Yahoo, etc. It actually might be best if a “did you mean” option does -not- show up under a keyword search. Long time SEO and pundit Sugar Rae created a new blog in 2005 yet she recently said that she could not be found on Google for her own, unique site name “sugarrae“. This is despite having decent links back to her web site, lots published content on her web site and others pointing back, etc. After venting on her blog last month, gaining a bit more noteriety, and links, her web site is now found for her unique domain name phrase. Understand as well that not every site will have the same quick resolution from the engines when something goes wrong. It may be a good idea to go into domain buying mode with a small bit of foresight into potential issues that could crop up.
Google announces that it collects personally identifiable information, and you should too!
July 19, 2007 By Webposition SEO Team
By Curtis Friedl
Google has announced that it will continue to collect personally identifiable information about its sites user, and maintain the collected information in a personally identifiable fashion for 18 months down from its previous 24 months. On the one hand each of us in the SEO environment, and the average internet user understands the basics of what is being said. It is important to support our law enforcement groups, and fight the spammers, and other threats that we find in the online portion of our world.
On the other hand however many of us may miss some of the benefits and reasons that Google collects this data. In the past we have discussed knowing your customers, and understanding what types of keywords/phrases they use so that you are better able to create content for your website. We have tried to convey that it is important to have a strong navigation structure, a sitemap, and employ every option to ensure that a user, the search engines included can locate and read all of the content on your site. We have even covered topics on keyword selection. While each of these will help you create a compelling website it will not help you to understand your audience. The best way to get to know your clients is to talk to them, and your sales people will tell you that they listen to the customer. Using the clients own keywords to answer their questions is a great way to interact with them, and project an idea of involvement in locating the best solution. In the World Wide Web environment cookies, and log files provide your answers, analyzing this data has been termed Web Analytics. All companies regardless of there size should use this data to assist them in better understanding there audience.
Google uses this same process to understand the information, in this case what is learned by tracking your interactions with them, not only with the search engine, but also with gmail, google maps, etc, all in an effort to provide the best answer to your questions in search, and a better service. Some where along the way I am sure that they will also mine this data to improve their bottom line, either through increased Adword fees because of the higher conversions, or the increased number of impressions generated by the higher user numbers. Google will know what keywords you are searching on today, yesterday, and everyday in the recent past. This information will be used to provide you with the best search results, in their case maybe the best ads that will drive a conversion with relation to your current search, and future searches. Some of this will be done with the use of browser cookies, and other parts will be done with the use of IP address tracking.
The major concern by consumer groups and the reason that this retention period was reduced is related to the privacy concerns that some have with how this data may be used. As I explained, Google can mine this data to improve their performance, and as a result lead to a better customer experience, abuses of this data can occur. As we saw at the end of last September 2006, AOL (who receives their search data from Google) released some log files that they had scrubbed for user data. The purpose was to aid in the development of new tools. However, once released data analysis lead to actual individual users being contacted by the media. While in this case it is scary that a specific individual can be isolated from the millions of users accessing AOL it illustrates the type of information that a company can gather from analysis of the interaction between a visitor and a website.
Web analytics can be one of the most important features in the design, or redesign of a page, and a site. Ensuring that your visitors, including the engines have the ability to visit your site completely, and thoroughly understand what it is that your visitor are seeking, guiding them through to a conversion will lead to a much healthier bottom line. It is this direct correlation that Google and you may use to better meet the needs of those your site is designed to serve.
Viral Videos: How Sawdust and $50 Created Marketing Success For Blendtec.com
By Webposition SEO Team
By Scott Goodyear
Reading through a few blogs and news forums, I came across a crazy video where a man in a lab coat used a blender to “blend” a new Apple iPhone. It was an amazingly simple, short, and funny video from a series called “Will It Blend?” by the Blendtec blender company. Blendtec’s marketing director, George Wright, was kind enough to speak with me on how a little bit of sawdust and $50 led to this video and created marketing success for Blendtec.com.
Will it Blend?
Above, Blendtec’s Tom Dickson asks “Will it blend?”
Inspiration
A year ago, Blendtec hired George Wright to head their newly created marketing department. George began his job by tightening up the company logo and branding, working with a web master to update the company web site, and a few other typical processes. While walking around the company one day, a trail of sawdust on the floor led him to an odd sight. Tom Dickson, the company’s CEO, founder, and blender designer, was trying to test the limits and/or break one of their blenders by “blending” some wood. George says that he was initially “shocked” by this example of “extreme blending” but it was also a bit of fun to watch too. With the spark of a funny “viral video” concept in mind, they went on a $50 shopping spree buying various odds and ends, set up a camera, recorded some short blending segments, and put a few videos online.
Popularity Grows
The “Will It Blend?” videos began to have a life of their own. The videos gained a cult following online and began to bring quite a lot of traffic to their web site. Of course, this also meant that they gained quite a few extra sales as well. The decision was made to buy a domain with the “willitblend” wording, new videos were created to celebrate various holidays, and their new site has continued to be quite a hit.
A year after putting their videos online, Blendtec’s blenders are now being featured on popular TV shows like Jay Leno and Good Morning America. While they had previously been trying to get a spot on a cooking show, now the Food Network has asked Blendtec if they could feature the Blendtec blender on the “I Want That” show. Other companies were even contacting Blendtec to see if they would “blend” their products either for internal marketing or for their “Will It Blend?” series. They were even featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article.
Lessons Learned
There were a few lessons that can be taken away from Wright’s experience.
Wright says that it a great way to “Market in a different, fun way, where people can talk about your products.” He says that most “bigger companies struggle with this [viral marketing] because it’s edgy, out there. But it’s easy with small companies because of latitude, if the message is honest, there’s no risk.” I interpret this to mean that yes, the blender really works and although it’s technically a commercial for their company, they’re really not putting you on. The video is not giving false or questionable promises like those “best sleep you’ve ever had” commercials for beds, “quick and easy weight loss (actual results will vary) with just a pill” commercials that you might see from time to time. They really do blend odd things with a heavy weight blender, so the odds are good that if you buy one, it’s not going to break trying to blend a couple chunks of ice for your cocktail.
Viral video hosting does not have to be a black hole sucking up your budget or a profitless endeavor. While not all virla videos will be a hit, you can start with $50 and a little bit of unpaid talent. Some, like Blendtec, begin by placing their viral videos on their own web site. But once popularity picks up, this can be quite a drain on server resources. And depending on your hosting company, beyond the price you are willing to pay for video hosting/data transfer costs. You can certainly place your videos in many of the obvious spots like Google’s You Tube, Yahoo Video, and a huge plethora of video hosting sites. But, there are others like Revver.com who will provide you with a share of the profits from advertisements that run with your video. Wright said that with the influx of visitors to their sites, this is a great way to earn a little extra revenue from companies willing to advertise on on your popular videos.
Success breeds success. If you really do well, like Blendtec, companies might send you “100s of thousands of requests to blend their products” says Wright. Blendtec is even being paid to blend things like CDs for a radio station who is marketing itself as the “new blend in radio”. The radio station in turn advertised the blendtec segment, thus more free advertisement for Blendtec. Wright says that because of opportunities like this, their marketing group actually bring additional revenue into their company.
Exposure and links from unexpected places. Of course, like myself, quite a few people are now discovering Blendtec through their iPod or iPhone blending videos. Blendtec is turning into an internet pop culture icon. Posts on various blogs and web sites include references to Blendtec. Editors for large online magazines, brick and mortar companies, etc. are reading some of these posts. And so… If you hit a nerve with the right crowd, Wright says that “the exposure is great”. In regards to SEO, I’d add that normally it would be quite difficult to get links from high profile sites / companies like AOL, MTV, etc. but if your video is popular and hits the right momentum, you never know who or where people will be posting about your products. And these are free links hitting thousands of eye balls and in turn, increasing the chance that even more people will link to your site.
Viral video targets new, some times undiscovered markets. Like many blender manufacturers, Blendtec has previously been targeting health clubs, bars, and similar commercial food preparers via in store demos at large food outlets like Costco Wholesale. He says that since their videos have become popular, they have a demographic emerging outside of their traditional commercial demographic, many newer Blendtec buyers are families or male (I’d guess perhaps due to the “Wile E. Coyote“-like tendencies that we sometimes exhibit in real life). He says that they have had several reports of children dragging their parents to the appliance section specifically for a blender. Product recognition is certainly being built as these parents often have a “oh, yeah the guy that blends golf balls used this one” when asked why they had chose to pick up a Blendtec blender.
Final Thoughts
As a final take away, think about the concept of “permission” based marketing. When you set up an advertisement in a search engine, on the side of a web page, on the radio, TV, etc. you are crossing your fingers that the target audience will not “tune you out” by blocking your ad, by using time/commercial skip technology, by changing the channel, or other methods. With viral videos you are certainly casting a wide net for your potential audience, Wright says that those who appreciate your advertisement will spread your message on their own, and to others who are also likely to appreciate your video because they won’t see it as an advertisement. You essentially gain their permission to advertise to them by amusing them, keeping them interested in your ideas, etc. As in Blendtec’s case, some go as far as to create their own spoof and video tributes.
Understand that you not only gain permission to from video viewers to market to them in a non-traditional way, but you may also be giving some of your fans to criticize your company/products in a new way as well. Although it probably wasn’t their best moment, I’m putting a link to this new video, where an attempt to blend a garden rake at Internet Retailer 2007 didn’t go off quite as planned. They were only able to blend about 3/4 of the rake before the blender sputtered out. Before watching the video, think about the simple fact that Blendtec is popular enough, that a conference attendee was filming a low quality capture of the Blendtec demo in the first place, in order to post it online.
In just over a month, this blooper has had over 100 comments – both good and bad. Either way, this is additional free advertising for Blendtec. While one could get discouraged by some of the negative comments, some of the posters asked questions like… would a normal blender even blend any of that rake? Were there any electrical problems? I think most people, even with the failed attempt, would still think that this was a pretty amazing demo of the Blendtec blender and the pull that viral videos can have. I found this comment in the video’s post pretty much sums things up:
snowmatt1 “I think is hilarious. I love the blendtec videos, and it makes it more real knowing it occasionally doesn’t work. and i think it is really funny that these guys instantly recognized it as a youtube moment. Just goes to show you how important youtube has become in our lives….”