I’m going to channel my inner @alanbleiweiss and rant for a minute about some things I saw over the last few days in the SEO world. I also want to apologize for any spelling mistakes from the start, as my right arm is in a cast and I’m typing this entirely left-handed until I can find an intern. (If you’re curious as to how I broke my arm, it was with a softball. there’s a video here. )

There’s been lots of SEO chatter lately about a recent SEL post called More Proof Google Counts Press Release Links. and I want to address a couple of issues that came up both in this thread and on Twitter.

First point: what works for one small made-up keyword may not scale or be indicative of search as a whole. Scientists see this in the real world when they notice that Newton’s laws don’t really work at the subatomic level. In SEO algorithms, we have the same phenomenon – and it’s covered in depth by many computer science classes. (Note: I have a computer science degree and used to be a software engineer, but I haven’t studied too much in the information retrieval field. There’s more in depth and profound techniques than the examples I am about to provide.)

A long time ago the Google algorithm was probably just a couple of orders more complex than an SQL statement that says something like “Select * from sites where content like ‘%term’ order by pagerank desc.”

It’s not that simple anymore. Most people think of the algorithm like a static equation. Something like Pagerank + KeywordInTitle – ExactMatchDomain – Penguin – Panda + linkDiversity-Loadtime. I’m pretty sure it’s not.

When I think of the Google Algorithm, (especially with things like Panda and Penguin) I instantly think of a neural network where the algorithm is fed a training set of data and it builds connections to constantly learn and improve what good results are. I’ll refrain from talking more about neural nets because that’s not my main point.

I also want to talk about the branch of information retrieval within computer science. Most of the basic theories (on which, the more complicated ones are built) in IR talk about dynamic weighting based on the corpus. (Corpus, being latin for body and referring here to all of the sites that Google could possible return for a query.)

Here’s an example that talks about one such theory (which uses’s everybody’s favorite @mattcutts over-reaction from 2 years ago: inverse document frequency)

Basically, what this says is that if every document in the result set has the same term on it, that term becomes less important. That makes sense. The real learning here though, is that the weighting of terms is dynamic based on the result set. If term weights can be dynamic for each result set, why can’t anchor text, links, page speed, social signals, or whatever other crazy thing is correlated to rankings? They Can Be!

So let’s look at the made up keyword example. In the case of a made up term, the corpus is very very small. In the SEL example, it’s also very very small.

Now, in this instance, what should Google do? It has pages that contain that word, but they don’t have any traditionally heavily weighted ranking signals. Rather than return no results, the ranking factor weights are changed and the page is returned. That one link actually helps when there’s no other factors to consider. get it?

Think of it as kind of a breadth first search for ranking factors. Given a tree of all factors Google knows about, it first looks at the main ones. If they aren’t present, it goes further down the tree to the less important ones and keeps traversing the tree until it finds something it can use to sort the documents.

It’s like choosing a car. First you decide SUV or Car. Then Brand, Then manual or automatic. Then maybe the color, and finally it’s down to the interface of the radio. But what if the entire car lot only had Red Automatic SUVs? That radio interface would be a LOT more important now wouldn’t it? Google is doing the same thing.

OK, point number 2. Still with me?

We need to stop analyzing every word @mattcutts says like it’s some lost scripture and start paying attention to the meaning of what he says. In this example, Matt was right. Press releases aren’t helping your site – because your site is probably going after keywords that exist on other sites, and since there’s other sites that means the press release link factor is so far down the tree of factors that it’s probably not being used.

Remember when Matt said that Page Speed was a “all else being equal we’ll return the faster site” type of factor? That fits perfectly with the tree and dynamic weights I just talked about.

Instead of looking at the big picture, the meaning, and the reasoning behind what Matt says, we get too caught up on the literal definitions. It’s the equivalent of thinking David and Goliath is a story about how there are giants in the world rather than a story about how man’s use of technology helps him overcome challenges and sets him apart from beasts. We keep taking the wrong message because we’re too literal.

That’s all I want to say. Feel free to leave feedback in the comments.

It’s amazing what kind of things you can find. For example, here’s a list of Cops who are probably about to be fired soon:

Being an SEO I couldn’t resist this one. Here’s some Google employees who like black hat SEO. (more likely just infiltrating various groups to see what’s going on – as if we used Facebook to discuss BH techniques.)

Here’s an obscure one that doesn’t make much sense unless you know that BYU students are forbidden from using drugs, drinking, or having pre-marital sex.

Here’s a good reason for me to move out of my hometown:

If you think about it, this one clearly demonstrates cause and effect relationships.

And this one is also kind of obvious:

I’ll do another version of this soon. Until then, what’s the most interesting Facebook Graph Search you’ve come up with? Feel free to share below.

YES! Actually, SEOs DO control the Internet

At least, according to Dilbert

I’m starting to think all of those “SEO is bullshit” articles may actually have a point. Take a look at some of the headlines I saw being spewed across my twitter stream today by several well-known SEOs. Here they are, paraphrased based on the articles they linked to:

SEO & Paid Search should be separate – by the CEO of a company who only does paid search

Top 10 WordPress themes that I could find affiliate links for – by an affiliate marketer

Mobile & Desktop websites should be different experiences – by the CEO of a company specializing in creating separate mobile websites.

Top 10 SEO agencies according to company who charges SEO agencies to be in their listings

You can’t measure the ROI of social media – by company who can’t show positive ROI

Every company needs to buy facebook ads – by president of company that does facebook advertising

Sensing a pattern here? I am. Other than a few select posts by a few select authors, I can’t remember the last time I read something on an SEO blog that wasn’t financially motivated. Very few people are sharing information in order to teach or inform, and hardly anything is done without some sort of financial motivation behind it anymore. Maybe that’s always been the case, but I like to think it wasn’t.

Ever wonder why SEO has such a bad reputation? It’s because a vast majority of our industry will say or endorse anything if they can make a few bucks off of it.

Don’t believe me? Look at the ads on your favorite industry blog. I bet you see paid link services and TopSEOs don’t you? Hover over them. Those aren’t adsense, those are direct placement. See what I mean? Even our best publications and conferences will accept any advertiser, sponsor, or exhibitor willing to pay the fee on time. Sure they’ve got bills to pay and all, and they are businesses who owe it to their stakeholders to turn a profit, but that’s just one symptom of the problem.

Every industry has their own trade journals, professional organizations, industry publications, conferences, and what not. I think we’ve actually got too many, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that people in the SEO industry quickly realized they could make more money selling bullshit to aspiring SEOs than they could by actually doing SEO. SEO used to be quite easy. It used to be about reverse engineering the algorithm and doing the little things that others weren’t to set your site apart. Then, more people started doing SEO, search algorithms improved, and SEO got a lot harder. People realized how important SEO was, but it was hard to do and an entire new generation of people looking for quick SEO fixes sprang up. Suddenly, it was much easier to market to SEOs that it was to actually do SEO.

We became unable to separate the marketing from the marketer. Our professional publications and events have become just one more channel to market to. For many, SEO has been dead for years. It died due to neglect and was reincarnated as something we’ll call SEOM – search engine optimization marketing. Almost ironically, practitioners of SEOM actually do a very good job of performing real SEO on their sites selling bullshit SEO, but they’re not blogging or speaking about that.

Maybe it’s an inherent problem within growth agencies like internet marketing, carpet baggers and what not, but it seems to be getting out of control lately. When’s the last time you saw an SEO blog recommend something that didn’t have an affiliate program? Have you read an article recently by a CEO who wasn’t just re-affirming that his company can solve problems you didn’t know you had? Ever seen a guest blog post where the article wasn’t carefully crafted around the links it was meant to include?

We constantly debate questions like Should we rename SEO? (this @mattcutts video being from literally 10 minutes ago) but the SEO moniker isn’t the problem. We’re the problem. Sure a new name would offer a fresh canvas (to put it quite existentially) but does anyone honestly believe we wouldn’t quickly paint over that new name’s canvas with the first thing somebody paid us to paint?

We’re marketers; it’s hard to stop thinking like marketers – I get that. For the sake of our industry though, whatever we decide to name it, we need to { stop shitting where we eat | separate our milkplates from our meat }

I’m not speaking for the whole industry here, there’s a lot of quality SEOs and marketers out there – you just won’t find them on any “top” list. For every good marketer though, there’s a lot more willing to take the first dollar that comes their way regardless of what that requires. A name change won’t get rid of them. It’s going to take a lot more, but we can start by not giving them our money, time, audience, or ad inventory.

Are there ad networks better than Adsense?

When you’re starting a website it can be simple to just throw some Google adsense on there and forget about it. But sometimes Google’s Adsense isn’t the best option to monetize a website. If you have a different type of traffic, or heaven forbid you’ve been banned you’re going to need an adsense alternative.

I’ve been exploring various ad networks over the past few months on several of my websites. Some out of curiosity and some out of necessity. It’s a good thing too because during my ad network trial I received an email from Google telling me that NoSwearing.com would no longer be allowed to show Adsense ads due to excessive profanity (what do you expect from a swear word list?) I’m still exploring other networks that will run on that site, if you know any please list them inthe comments.

Use Multiple Ad Networks & Default Bids Like A Pro

Even if you’re happy with your current ad network, you can take advantage of the minimum CPM and alternate/default ad settings many networks offer to maximize your ROI. If you’re making $0.48 CPM on adsense, then put it as the default ad of of a different network and set that network’s minimum CPM to $0.50. That way, you’ll always show the more profitable ad network and maximize your earnings. I’ve been using this strategy for almost a year now, and it’s greatly increased my average CPMs on the sites that use it.
(tl;dr – I chain Lijit to adbrite to casale/adsense)

Here’s my top Adsense alternative ad networks:

Cost per Thousand Impressions – CPM ad networks

Casale Media

I use Casale on NoSlang.com. Their banners are great and the eCPM is higher than what I was making with regular adsense ads. They do require a minimum of impressions to get in though, and it’s not a low number. This does help keep the quality of ads up. The one knock I have is that their “backup ad” format only takes URLs, NOT cut and paste javascript code from other networks. If they added that feature, This would be my top ad network by far.
pros: quality ads, high cpms, paypal minimum $25 payment
cons: default ad tags don’t support javascript, very selective on sites approved
Sign Up For Casale

Lijit

Lijit is a new player in ad networks having recently burst onto the scene. In addition to ads, Lijit can also provide you with demographic information about your site. I strongly suggest you try it out – you can learn a lot from the demographic information. I’ve been using Lijit on several of my websites and I love the CPM rates. I just wish they had a higher fill rate for US ads. Another great thing is that they actually serve international ads (although at much lower CPM rates.) Lijit lets you set a minimum CPM for ads if you want and will show ads from another ad network if they can’t meet your CPM. I use Lijit as the first option in my chaining strategy on several sites.
pros: demographics, high CPM, default ads, paypal
cons: low fill rate
Sign Up For Lijit

AdBrite

Note: As of 2/1/2012 Adbrite is closing. I’ll miss them, mostly because I enjoyed using their service as a kind of ad server.
Adbrite is a good catch-all default. They accept pretty much any website and they have various formats of ads – including interstitial ads. They don’t quite pay as well as Adsense but they do have a good fill rate. The best feature of adbrite is the ability to set your default CPM payment and have Adbrite show other ads if it can’t hit that default. I use Adbrite like an ad server. I set the minimum CPM to 1 cent higher than my other ad network averages and put that other ad network as the default. That way, my website is always showing the highest paying ads. This gets even more powerful when you chain it with other ad networks like Lijit. (I chain lijit to adbrite to adsense/bidvertiser or whatever my default is.)
pros: easy to get into, good variety, set pricing, has default ad tag option, interstitial ads
cons: lower eCPM, pays by actual check.
Sign Up For Adbrite

Pay Per Click (PPC) Networks:

Bidvertiser

Until I tried them I had never heard of Bidvertiser. Bidvertiser is unique in that they not only pay for clicks, but pay an additional bonus for conversions. They also offer a toolbar option but I hadn’t played with that. When I first started with bidvertiser the eCPM rates were unbeatable. Lately, they’ve dropped off a bit but I think that’s just due to my profanity laden site. – it can’t hurt to throw them into your rotation. Feel free to leave a comment here.
pros: good eCPM, conversion bonus, paypal with $10 minimum
cons: reporting interface could use work, 72 hour reporting delay for conversion revenue.
Sign Up For Bidvertiser

Chitika

Chitika keeps rolling out new options. They started out with the product suggestion ad but that never performed greatly for me. Now though they’ve got regular text ads as well as an innovated “whitespace” ad that shows in the dead space of your website. When I put Chitika on NoSwearing.com it had a better eCPM than adbrite but didn’t compare to Adsense. Using the whitspace ad though allowed me to include more than 3 ad units on a page and provided an additional revenue boost.
pros: additional formats compatible with adsense, pays by paypal, behavioral ad options
cons: lower eCPM.
Sign Up For Chitika

Cost Per Action – CPA ad networks

Epic Direct (formerly Azoogle)

I’ve only played with one CPA ad network. Other suggestions include Commission Junction, ShareaSale, and ClickBank but I’ve never been a fan of CPA ads. If you’re a good affiliate marketer (which I’m not) then there IS potential with CPA but I just haven’t gone that route. What I like best about Epic Direct is that you get an account manager who gives you his IM and Email and will help you find offers for your site.
Sign up for Epic Direct

Summary: When going from HTTPS to HTTP sites, browsers don’t pass any referer information. When a wired user clicks a result on https Google, Google is doing an internal redirect to an http page THEN sending the user to the search result they clicked on. This redirect allows a referer (with keyword stripped by Google) to be passed.

On Google’s mobile HTTPS version, this first redirect is NOT happening, thus the complete referer is stripped when clicking on a search result.

This appears to be a Google issue, not an Apple issue – and is just made worse by the fact that iOS6 defaults to the https version of google mobile.

While doing some mobile site testing the other day I stumbled upon an interesting happening. I couldn’t find any blog posts or announcements about this, so I’m writing up what I’m seeing.

It would seem that Google is not passing any HTTP_REFERER data For those who have Google as their iOS6 default search engine (Note: I haven’t tested in previous iOS versions. Second note: In my tests, Bing was passing this information.) That means that when it comes to site analytics, mobile visitors searching on their iPhone won’t be tracked as search visitors – they’ll count the same as people who just came directly to your website from a bookmark or by typing it in.

To fully understand what’s happening, let’s look at a couple of examples. To do that, we need a site that’s indexed by Google but that we can safely play with. I’ve got one of those.

For this test, I’ve googled a term (In this case, ‘seotrax’) and then clicked on the link to my test site. Once there, I had the site print out all the server variables passed over so we can see what data is available.

Here’s how normal, web based Google looks:

You can see that the HTTP_REFER value is clearly telling us not only that the visitor came from Google but that their keyword was “seotrax.” This is what most analytics packages look at when tracking your visitors.

But Google SSL (for logged in visitors) does it differently. Back in 2011, Google started encrypting the searches for logged in users. They were still telling us the visitor came from Google, but due to privacy concerns they wouldn’t pass over the keyword (More info on this via Search Engine Land.)

Here’s what a web-based Google SSL search passes:

We can see the HTTP_REFERER is still set, but the q= parameter for the keyword used is missing. We don’t know what they searched, but it’s still counting as a search.

Now, that brings us to the iOS search box in Safari. Here’s what I’m seeing there:

There is NO HTTP_REFERER at all! This traffic looks the same as somebody who just typed in the URL.

This is ONLY happening for the default search on iOS, and NOT if a user actually goes to Google and searches so I can’t tell if it’s a Google issue or a Safari issue.

Is this a bug? Is this on purpose? I can’t seem to find any Google or Apple documentation on it. Will browsers soon follow this lead? There’s been debate for years about whether or not sending referer data is a privacy violation, is the argument swaying toward total privacy? If so, that means webmasters will have to rely on webmaster tools instead of collecting their own search data. That has significant issues for those who want to tie their SEO data to sales or KPIs too, but that’s a topic for another post.

If you want to run your own tests, all you need to do is search for “seotrax” and click on the “SEOtrax.com” result. I’ll leave it printing out server data. If you have an older iOS device or other mobile platform, I’d love for you to leave a comment about how that works too. Thanks!

UPDATE: @seoaware sent me an email saying her older iOS device IS actually passing a referer value – so this appears to be a new change with iOS6 only.

UPDATE 2: I’ve just pulled some graphs from one of my personal sites. There’s a definite spike on “direct” traffic starting after the 9/19 launch of iOS6 – which is what we would expect to see if iOS6 searches aren’t sending a referer.

We’re all asked a similar question at some point and from that moment on we can’t stop thinking about the future. We play out several scenarios, we fantasize about our future selves, and we aspire toward what could possibly be. Some people plan it out and follow it to a T. I’m not some people.

Oh to be 17 again. Life was full of so much promise, so much potential, so much awesomeness. Then, in the blink of an eye you’re 31 and writing a drunken blog post at 10:45 on a Tuesday night. What the hell happened? You had all these plans, all these ideals, this perfect vision of your future. It’s right there, nicely drawn out in crayon – and yet somehow you royally fucked it up. So now what?

You have no idea what you actually want, but you just know that this isn’t it. Happiness is a dream. It’s out there somewhere, but the dragon remains just out of reach.

You push forward – wearing your pain, drinking your confusion, until it consumes you. You keep going though, driven by a belief that the unknown has to be better than this. Eventually it dawns on you: there is no destination. The road goes on forever but the party eventually ends.

Where do we go from there? Some of us find comfort in our jobs. We lie to ourselves about it. “If I just get promoted, or if I can finally make $x/year – THEN I’ll be happy. You bust your ass, you best all the challenges thrown your way, you make it to the end and you cheer – but your princess is in a different castle. The goal changes, the journey continues, wash rinse repeat.

“go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, be a loving parent, educate your kids, ask them to study well and get a job and get married….” The cycle never ends, the thirst is never quenched, the road goes on forever, the dragon is still out of reach and there’s another castle with another princess to save.

It’s not what you planned. In fact, you’re not sure what it is. You’d think of something better if you could, but you can’t.

So now what?

I currently don’t have a pubcon discount code to offer.

Just head over to pubcon.com and enter the code when you register. You’ll save 20% off of the current cost of registration (and I’ll get a couple bucks too!) If you end up using my discount code come find me and let me know, I’ll put that affiliate commission toward buying you a beer.

You won’t want to miss this year’s Pubcon. The agenda is jam packed with awesome sessions and you’ll get to see me talk about sustainable SEO, moderate a panel on pandas & penguins, and I’m even doing a site clinic where you can ask me for free advice about your website. Yeah, Free advice.

So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of the 20% Pubcon discount code and join in on the fun.

I’ll see you in Vegas.
(I’ll also see you in New York if you’re doing SMX East!)

Just a quick update about where you can catch me for the rest of 2012. I’m super excited to announce that I’ll be part of an exciting panel about SEO Performance Metrics at SMX East on October 2nd. I’ll be speaking with two awesome and respected SEOs: @rhea and @vanessafox . I’m truly flattered to share a stage with them. If you want to learn about tying SEO activities to business goals and KPIs, how to measure them, and how to present your measurements then don’t miss that session. I’ll be staying at the official conference hotel in New York, so let’s grab a beer or maybe catch a Yankees/Bosox game.

A few days later I’ll be boarding a plane to Vegas for Pubcon 2012 – October 15th. I’ve got a full schedule here. I’ll be speaking about Algo-Proofing and Sustainable SEO. I did a very similar presentation at SMX Toronto earlier this year but since then so much has happened (including Penguin) that I’m excited to re-visit the topic.

I’m also moderating a panel called Google Built a Zoo where panelists will talk all about the recent Google algorithm changes.

And, if that’s not enough Ryan at Pubcon, I’m also doing an interactive site review clinic where you can have me look at your website and tell you why it sucks – or just answer any SEO questions you might have about your site.

As always, all of my previous slides are online on my personal Ryan Jones website. If you’re liveblogging any of my sessions at any conference and would like my slides beforehand just let me know and I’ll loan you my thumb drive before the session – or email you them as soon as they’re finalized if you ask nicely.

There’s also a chance I’ll be at SES Chicago this year – I haven’t fully decided yet.

If you’re at any of those events just hit me up on Twitter. I’m always glad to grab a beer and talk SEO. See you in October.

Dear Politicians. I’m struggling with which party to vote for this year. I would greatly appreciate some help from you. Here is what I believe in:

I believe in fiscal responsibility.

I believe that nothing is too big to fail.

I believe that left to its own accord, the free market will take care of itself.

I believe that people have a right to marry or sleep with any other consenting person they choose.

I believe birth control is a woman’s choice.

I believe in the separation of church and state.

I believe that science should be taught in schools and religion should be taught in church.

I believe that it’s up to parents, and only parents, to decide how to raise their kids.

I don’t want my laws based on somebody else’s religion – and I’m pretty sure other people don’t want laws based on mine.

I believe that guns are no more responsible for murder than spoons are for obesity.

I believe behavior is easier to change with education than legislation.

I believe tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on people who are able to work but simply unwilling to do so.

I believe that you can’t solve problems with the same flawed logic that created them.

I believe in measurement and metrics, and I believe that all laws should be evaluated as to whether or not they actually accomplished their set goals.

I believe that all legal citizens should be able to vote if they so choose, and I see no problem with requiring identification to do so.

I believe that if you don’t have an ID, then it’s your own problem because there’s nothing stopping you from getting one.

I believe that copyright, trademark, patent, and internet laws are all in need of a major overhaul.

I believe that the entertainment industry lawyers shouldn’t be the only ones involved in creating those laws.

I believe that the worst employee should be the first one fired and the best employee should be the first one hired – regardless of race, age, gender, or years of service.

I believe prices AND wages should be determined based upon whatever the market is willing to pay.

I believe that corporations can’t be considered people until they can be executed or jailed.

I really don’t care what other people believe either, however I do believe I should be able to disagree with them if I choose.

Unfortunately, I don’t fit into any political parties. Perhaps if I didn’t have to choose from two completely polarized buckets of issues I would be able to make decision. Perhaps we should all give that a try?