Stephan Spencer reports that Matt Cutts has blessed us with several Google revelations (see below for Stephan’s details, and here for Stephanie Booth’s live-blog of Matt’s talk), one of which is that the Google algo will now recognize underscore-connected words in URLs as phrases. This is a big deal for many webmasters.

While happy for these revelations, my question, however, is this: why did Matt decide to dish all this hot Google stuff at a WordPress-focused conference, instead of at a more logical venue such as SMX Advanced in Seattle, just last month? Matt had ample speaking opps to reveal any/all of these things, but didn’t. I can’t imagine, however, a more relevant or appreciative audience than the SMX crowd.

Quotes from Stephan’s story:

One key development that Matt shared with the audience was that underscores in URLs are now (or at least very soon to be) treated as word separators by Google. That’s great news, because it historically hasn’t been that way. Back in 2005, Matt stated that Google did not view underscores in URLs as word separators. That meant that in a URL like http://www.mysite.com/iphone_review.html Googlebot couldn’t “see” the words iphone or review. Instead it read iphone_review as one word. I wouldn’t recommend targeting “iphone_review” as a keyword, as I doubt anyone will be including an underscore in their Google query.

So it used to be–until now–that any benefit that you would have gotten by having a keyword-rich URL was negated by the use of underscores separating those words. TypePad and Movable Type blogs were particularly affected by this, as by default, underscores were used instead of hyphens. This new change in the Google algorithm should make bloggers using the TypePad service or the Movable Type blog software (and anyone else using underscores in their URLs) very happy, as I anticipate their Google traffic will be going up.

A few other highlights from Matt’s talk that you may find interesting:

* Matt claims that Google treats URLs with a query string the same as static URLs. Caveat: as long as there are no more than two or three parameters in the URL, that is! Put another way, you won’t take a hit in your Google rankings if you have a question mark in your URL; just don’t have more than two or three equals signs in the URL.

* Matt stated that the number of slashes in your URL (i.e. the number of directories deep your page is) isn’t a factor in your Google rankings. He went on to say that although it doesn’t matter for Google, it is rumored to matter for Yahoo and MSN (Live Search). Matt addressed this because I specifically asked the question from the audience.

* According to Matt, the file extension in your URL won’t affect your rankings. So it’s inconsequential whether you use .php, .html, .htm, .asp, .aspx, .jsp etc. The one extension you should avoid for your Web documents? .exe.

* Matt stated it was myth that Google uses its status as a domain registrar to access domain registration data to use it as a ranking signal. According to Matt, being a registrar doesn’t grant one special access to other registrars’ customer data. Note that Matt didn’t state whether Google is or isn’t using WHOIS data as a signal. I believe they are.

* When asked about how to get one’s blog into Google News, Matt shared one of Google’s requirements for inclusion: the blog must have multiple authors. So those of you wanting your blog showing up in Google News results, I hope it’s a group blog!

[END]

In a NY Times article, Brad Stone and Matt Richtel explore the issue of “sock puppets” — people who post online commentary under assumed identities (recent example: “Rahodeb“). The good news is that online conversations don’t have to become unethical. You can create a positive press campaign and get your message out in a number of ways:

• Company blogs: Encourage blogging throughout your organization. Establishing a corporate blogging policy is a good first step.

• E-Newsletters: Ask your readers to comment on your company blog.

• Press releases: Use (search engine-optimized) press releases to announce blogs and other customer-centric initiatives.

• Podcasts: PR Web’s Podcast service is easy to use; it submits your podcasts to iTunes and podcast directories, providing even more ways for users to find them.

• Social networking sites: Monitor relevant sites to identify customer concerns and brand evangelists, and help create goodwill by establishing two-way communications that address concerns and show apprecation for brand enthusiasm. Branded social-networking sites (Carspace.com - Edmunds, Nike, etc.) are becoming more popular. Web Crossing Neighbors (or free alternative Ning.com) can help you create your own space.

Starting a positive press campaign today will help you create conversations that can have a lasting impact on your reputation.

Bernhard Warner sez in The Times Online he was recently persuaded to favor Facebook as his main biz-networking site. The process began when a colleague shot him this clue: that “LinkedIn is over!”

Warner makes some good points in Facebook’s favor, including its more personal focus:

Facebook tells me things about my contacts I never knew before - engagements, new babies, a jubilant note that my friend’s wife’s cancer has gone into remission. I can also see holiday snaps, the books people are reading, music they’ve just listened to, the places they’ve traveled, the social causes they are dedicated to. Even the simple stream of consciousness updates - “I’m stressed,” “Hooray! I’m on holiday!”, “Where the hell is the sun?! It’s summer!” - speak volumes about these people, revealing far more than a business lunch.

I agree. One of the downsides of today’s office situation - where more of us are working in home offices or variations of Starbucks cubes, and there’s little slack time - is the lack of personal interaction with our colleagues. LinkedIn really isn’t the place for such kibitzing, and things like Twitter (which BusinessWeek calls “All Trivia, All the Time”,) may be too ephemeral to be taken seriously.

Then there’s the popularity factor - Facebook is growing quickly. In May, FB had 89% more visitors than in May 2006.

Guess I’ll have to get clued in, myself (in my copious free time, of course), and work on my own Facebook identity.

Apple sold up to 700,000 iPhones in its first three days on sale, sez USA Today. Most buyers opted for the $599 model with 8 GB of storage.

Apple kept nearly all the phones to sell at its own Apple stores, apparently. If you’re still looking for one, the page below lets you search for next-day phone availability (query after 9 pm) at Apple stores.

http://www.apple.com/retail/iphone/

Todd Friesen (aka Oilman) has written a new column in MediaPost’s OMMA Magazine (registration req’d - try BugMeNot for a reg code) in which he articulates something we’ve also realized for the past couple of years: that SEO is no longer just about driving more traffic to a site; it’s also about helping the site owner get more of those visitors to take a desired action. Todd sums it up nicely:

I propose that we redefine SEO. Rather than merely driving relevant traffic, I think SEO should be the practice of generating and converting organic search engine traffic, measuring it by raw traffic, ranking numbers, conversion rate, and new revenue year over year.

In other words, we need to lead the horse to water and convince him he’s thirsty.

NSI started increasing clients’ thirst several years ago, when we were approached by a local-entertainment provider who wanted to increase traffic to his site. Actually, he wanted to increase booking-leads from the site, but in his mind that just meant he needed more traffic. More traffic = more leads, right?

We were interested in helping, but a quick review of his website raised warning flags. The home page consisted only of images (graphic logo header and no text), the site was unattractive, poorly organized and had a muddled call-to-action message. I knew that if we took this project on, we could be successful at increasing traffic - even relevant, targeted traffic - to the site, but he wouldn’t get any more leads because few people would stay longer than a few seconds.

And NSI - not the crummy website - would get the blame. As Todd writes:

You can be the world’s greatest at SEO, but
if your clients aren’t getting a decent return on investment from what
they spend on you, I almost guarantee they won’t renew for year two.

That’s what was in the back of my mind, as we talked about this prospective clients needs.

What we did was propose something different for him: no organic SEO - just a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign - until the website was redesigned into a visitor-friendly site, with clear navigation, inviting graphics, helpful copy and a call to action on every page. The client agreed, and we helped redesign the site, making it both visitor- and search engine-friendly. In the meantime the PPC campaign provided targeted traffic, and yielded valuable market-research info in terms of real-world search terms (which were plugged into the new site).

By the time we conducted organic SEO on the redesigned site, leads were already up and analytics showed us that although traffic hadn’t increased very much, search-generated traffic had become much more targeted on important keyword phrases. What’s more, visitors were staying longer and visiting more pages. Analytics also helped us show the client what sites were providing the most referred traffic, which helped him direct his ad dollars to those sites rather than spreading money around and hoping for the best.

By looking at this client’s needs holistically, as Todd Friesen recommends - rather than just through an SEO lens - we helped our client far more, and got the renewal, as well. Since this experience, we ask prospective clients a lot more questions than before about their overall marketing goals and needs, instead of just taking their word when they say they need to improve business via SEO. And, we find most are open to accepting us as an online-marketing solutions provider - not just “the SEO guys.”