There's so much happening in the world of search, it's hard to stay abreast of even half of it. However, it's my responsibility to keep those of you who aren't taking the time to read SEL in the know. 
First, some of the bigger stories (or ones I have more commentary on):
- Threadwatch is Closing Down Friday
It's almost unbelievable, but the fabled center of gossip & reporting in the world of search is finally taking a hike. Aaron's reasons are solid, but I have to mourn it - I honestly really enjoyed the posts there and often found a gem or two each week that wasn't covered elsewhere. - Marketing on LinkedIn
I shared the Get Dugg panel in Toronto with Helen Overland, who's taken much of the advice given during her fascinating presentation and made a blog post. If you're not marketing on LinkedIn, you're almost certainly missing an opportunity personally & professionally. Growing faster than Facebook and with more user loyalty than Digg, LinkedIn is the next "big" thing in our space, as long as it doesn't do any shark-jumping. BTW - I only accept LinkedIn invites from people I've actually met in person (for more than a few minutes) - it's no disrespect, I just think that the goal of the site is to connect with people that you can actually vouch for. - Class Divide Between MySpace & Facebook
My friend, Jon Mendez, was in Seattle today and took Mystery Guest and me to the Mariners game tonight (where we saw Matt McGee, too) and commented that he felt this was a long time coming. Certainly anyone who spends considerable time playing on both can feel the remarkable differences between the people who populate the sites. The most revealing quote to me came early in the report - "...the division in the military reflects the division in high schools. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook." Wow. - 20 to 25% of the Queries We See Today, We Have Never Seen Before
This has to be the quote of the month for SEOs. It shows us that, really, we have no idea how big the tail of search really is. It's daunting, overwhelming, all-consuming. To imagine that each day, Google's query logs reveal a full 25% that haven't ever been seen before is simply mind-numbing. How do you target that? How can you play in that arena, at that size. My only piece of advice - no matter how proliferate a writer you are and no matter how excellent your editorial work, you can never match the power of UGC for long-tail targeting. - Advice for Jerry Yang When Taking Over Yahoo!
I know I'm way behind on covering this, but I thought that Andrew's post was simply brilliant. The only thing he didn't mention was LinkedIn, which Yahoo! should also acquire, ASAP. Yahoo! also needs a brilliant bit of viral marketing to steal some search share from Google - they can probably only do this in a single vertical at first, but the suggestion to acquire Yelp was ingenuous and the idea that mobiles should all be Yahoo! default is also excellent. Listen up, those Canadians know what they're talking aboot.
Some quick ones:
- An RSS Subscriber is Worth a Thousand Links - well said, Aaron, and very true (though I'd say, rather, 250 or 300)
- The Enormous Linkbait List - a great roundup of linkbait-related posts. Now if only someone would do the same for landing page optimization...
- Mobile Metrics Data - shows us that, much as in search, Google dominates mobile device access, though Yahoo! and MSN are much more substantive players in this arena.
- Capitalize on Universal Search - optimization techniques from Ben Pfeiffer to target many of the search verticals at Google here. There's nothing earth-shattering, but it should help to un-scare you a bit.
- SEO-Scoop Turns 3 - When I started the SEOmoz blog, all I wanted in the world was to be noticed by Donna Fontenot at SEO-Scoop, my favorite blog. Congrats, Donna - it's been a terrific three years :)
- How to Market B2B in Social Media - Loved this post. Point your stuffed-shirt clients here before letting them onto Digg, Reddit, et al.
- The Value of Speaking at Conferences - Amost two dozen search folks contributed their thoughts on why it makes sense, including yours truly.
- Google Supplemental Weirdness - Rae wrote some great stuff here, and the comments are even more illuminating. Supplemental does act strange - sometimes I'll see PR7, high ranking pages tagged with "supplemental" and sometimes supplemental has no consistency between sites at all.
- Brilliant AdWords Tip - Holy mackerel, that's amazing. CTR up 135% with the addition of one letter to an Adwords Ad.
As always, please add your news items and links in the comments.
p.s. Is it OK that I'm totally jealous I didn't get an invite to Foo Camp? Sniffle, snifflle...
Very useful links. I really like the Adwords tip.
I think it all depends on the quality of the links, the content on your blog, and you audience.
I checked some A-list blogs to compare subscribers count and inbound links:
SEOmoz
13,109 subscribers
998,000 links
76.13 links per subscriber
Problogger
25,579 subscribers
543,000 links
21.23 links per subscriber
Copyblogger
19083 subscribers
196,000 links
10.27 links per subscriber
Shoemoney
9737 subscribers
127,000 links
13.04 links per subscriber
John Chow
5,818 subscribers
127,000 links
21.83 links per subscriber
The gap doesn't seem to be so big.
Hamlet - watch out, Feedburner's numbers are woefully inaccurate. Shoe, I believe, actually has more subscribers than SEOmoz.
;)
Agreed. As a general rule, never take any user-number type data to the bank if you got it online.
Most certainly feedburner is very inaccurate like rand said thats another reason I didn't puruse into using them too much, but it does give you an idea, and if I'm right Rand probably knows more about this then I do, but if you pay for the montly fee version they support I think its more in depth.
The best way to tell is to just use good judgement, and certain tools to analyze it ;)
Completely off topic, but it just occurred to me that if this post had been written in the UK the title would just have been:
Summer? What summer?
Is that why you're out shopping for sports cars? Need something to perk you up from the dreary weather?
Yeah - that and the fact that the grey skies are starting to match the colour of more & more of my hair....
LOL! that's given me the giggles :) - it's not that better in calgary Ciaran, but the news from over there is pretty dire on the deluge front.. hope it dries up for you soon!
On a more related *blush* note - I LOVE linked-in - can't be bothered with facebook though (no offence), was interested in the 'new query' stats though not that surprised - and more interested in the new approach to interpreting queries that google has implmented.
And sad that Aaron is sutting down threadwatch.. Thanks Rand, i did feel a little breathless after that post - what a lot of great insights. ta ;)
Re: Facebook/MySpace:
Officers are soldiers too. He should have said:
...the division in the military reflects the division in high schools. Enlisted personnel are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook.
My brother-in-law - an Army Captain who spent 18 months in Iraq and 12 months in Afghanistan - is absolutely a soldier and would be insulted to hear otherwise.
Lorisa - I believe the author is actually a female PHD student, but your point is well taken and should be corrected. "Soldier" isn't a formal differentiator between ranks, right? It refers to anyone in the military.
BTW - Please know that my personal military knowledge is almost completely 0. Something I need to work on.
The way your blurb was written, I thought that Jon Mendez was the author. :)
I called my sister and she said that technically, enlisted personnel are soldiers, but coloquially, you can call anyone in the military a soldier.
The dictionary says:
So, it can stay as written, but changing it might make it more clear. I blame my family for my confusion, since they always call Ben a soldier!
Another "soldier" update! (I love these parenthetical yet education discussions, don't you?)
I spoke to my brother-in-law, Ben, which is what I should have done from the beginning, since he's the expert. Here's what he said:
Years ago, there was a distinction between "soldiers" and "officers". In recent times, the Army has made a concerted effort to refer to officers as also being soldiers.
The reason for this is that the nature of combat has changed, and rather than the old scenario (enlisted personnel on the front lines, officers behind the scenes planning manuevers), today's wars have officers serving on the front lines right alongside everyone else.
Ben said that he's been in meetings where an Army general has told a roomful of officers, "You are all soldiers". That's where the term stands today. So the author of that article would do well to update that sentence - and the Wikipedia "soldier" article should be changed too (no surprise!).
"BTW - I only accept LinkedIn invites from people I've actually met in person (for more than a few minutes)"
Oh well....I guess I'll have to introduce myself next time I see you!! lol
I don't have a link... but Gray Wolf's post about submitting articles for links was good... basically he was just asking for feedback but got a lot of good responses.
Yeah, was sad to see that Aaron is closing down threadwatch, too bad.
I guess the only news I can think of off the top of my head from this week not already beat to death is PayPal's new homepage design.
I posted about it here ...
https://www.ecommerceoptimization.com/articles/ (still close to the top)
The talk about 20%-25% new search queries daily is pretty interesting. I have been waiting to see what more comes out on that. I mean words and phrases can't be made up that often, right? It's got to be the same words in varying order with different adjectives that is new to Google. Or am I wrong and these are new words and phrases?
1000 links from an RSS post? Sounds fascinating. I do have an RSS post which is being used in over 200+ sites. Strange that it hasnt brought that much of inbound links. Can anyone help to explain?
Another gratuitous plug, but I think a valid one.
Talking about Facebook & LinkedIn I've noticed a trend in these networks being used for recruitment purposes (nothing new on LinkedIn, but Facebook?!) I won't place the link here, but if you're interested follow me back to our blog from my profile.
Mozzers - please feel free to delete this if you think it's not relevant..
Ciaran - for goodness sake, put in the link. They're nofollowed you know, and we love to read your stuff. No one's going to call you out for it.
Your wish is my command
I guess this is news, since it doesn't happen very often: I've written an article that's actually about search rather than mocking a tv commercial or a politician.
It's about the current hub-bub over image search and all the advice people are doling out about how to get images to rank well.
It's also up at my main site, but if anyone wants to comment on the article the blog would be the place.
Helen Overland's article on Linkedin includes a section called, "Supporting Your SEO". In this section she suggests sending a company-wide email requesting a link back to the company website. I did just that a couple of months ago in my organization. If you do SEO work in-house, this is one more touch-point in the education and empowerment of individuals with respect to SEO and the success of the corporate website.
A Few Tips
Make it a big deal. The subject line of my email was, “You Can Help (Company) SEO Through Linkedin”. When you see people in the halls, at the water cooler, wherever, bring it up. If you participate in company conference calls that include a wrap-up round table discussion, bring it up.
Provide concise step-by-step instructions. I provided six step instructions, and still got questions. Also, be sure to identify the anchor text you want used. You never know what they will come up with on thier own.
Lead the leaders. Give everyone a few days, then knock on office doors. “Excuse me, CEO, do you have five minutes so that I can walk you through updating your Linkedin profile? I know you are busy, and it will be quicker for you if we walk through it together.”
Follow-up. Be persistent. Send a follow-up email to those who have not participated and link to the CEO’s public profile as an example. Believe me, it is an excellent motivator to the tardy recipients that the Head Cheese found it important enough to contribute.
Biggest (breaking?) story this week?
Marchex Network launches 100,000 local mini-sites based on UGC and their acquisition of OpenList.
https://www.marchex.com/press/20070627.html
Landing page 2.
so true about facebook and myspace.
I've a fan of LinkedIn for several years now, and have tried to get everyone I work with into it also.
Just got into Facebookabout 8 months ago. I see the differneces mentioned, but I just wonder how long it will take before it turns into mySpace.
The BEST thing about Facebook over MySpace is formatting.
I have seen so many MySpace sites that are so busy and abnoxious with videos and music strewn everywhere that I have to click off of them.
Facebook is great in it's organization/layout. The downside is the lack of real customization. Can someone find a happy medium?
Rand - how could you miss out the hottest news story of the moment? The poll to find the nicest bloke (man for any non-Brits) in SEO.
This is a shameless plug I admit, but why not encourage your readers to vote for you!
;)
I love LinkedIn it has been very rewarding for me. We even had a local area face to face party here in the Portland OR. 75 attendees complete with band and everything.LinkedIn Portland Soiree/Par-tay
Very interesting post by Aaron Search, Advertising, Gatekeepers, & The Pending Online Security Wars
Great post! I enjoy SEOmoz much more than SEL.
Keep 'em coming Rand
If 25% of all queries are unique this makes approximately 25,000,000 new phrases each month. 100m X .25
Of course we have new words which never existed before such as: wikipedia, flickr, searchr, jobster, web20 etc...
Where's the 100m number from, cvos?
Mind-boggling stuff...
Personally, I've been a fan of LinkedIn since 2005. It's gratifying that so many other people are beginning to see the light now. :)
That is amazing that 25% of search queries daily have actually never been seen before!
I really was amazed at the Adwords tip as well. In fact I just implemented it on a couple of my campaigns so I'll see how it affects my CTR.