Thursday, March 02, 2006
Questionable Search Engine Tactic Two: Redirection
Tactic: Redirection; Level: Moderately evil – You may have seen this one in the news if you follow geeky tech news like I do. BMW Europe’s entire web site was banned from Google’s search engine for engaging in this tactic. What is redirection? It’s actually a combination of a non-evil tactic and evil one. Let me explain.
First, it’s a common and more or less accepted tactic to put lots and lots of very specific text, repeatedly but not in a repetitive pattern, on your web pages in order to increase the perceived quality of your page. This makes for some very odd looking pages, and it’s why you’ll often see pages that sell something very simple appear to say way more than they need to about the product. The more times those keywords are mentioned in a page in the context of normal writing – that is, not just mindlessly repeated all over the page, but actually used in intelligible ways – the more likely that page will be found for those keywords.
This is what’s called keyword “quality” – it means that you are actually talking about the keywords on your page, rather than just listing them to elevate your search rankings. Listing tons of words is another old school tactic and search engines get around this by looking for quality. The problem with creating this kind of quality for a commercial site is that it can create (as I mentioned before) some odd looking pages, especially if you are trying to sell a high-dollar, exclusive product like a luxury car.
The redirection trick works like this: A web site operator (in this case, BMW Europe) sets up one of these pages loaded with quality keywords (BMW, car, luxury, etc., all in quality sentences or context) to pull a higher ranking in the search listing. The unwitting Google user clicks on that link and is magically taken to BMW Europe’s homepage, which happens to have very little wording on it – just lots of pictures and other stuff you’d expect on a normal auto manufacturer site. The trick here is that the user is actually taken to the keyword-loaded page and then redirected to BMW’s homepage without ever noticing that they actually went through this hidden “gateway.” Since this is against Google’s terms of service, BMW Europe got banned from Google’s listings until they changed their pages.
First, it’s a common and more or less accepted tactic to put lots and lots of very specific text, repeatedly but not in a repetitive pattern, on your web pages in order to increase the perceived quality of your page. This makes for some very odd looking pages, and it’s why you’ll often see pages that sell something very simple appear to say way more than they need to about the product. The more times those keywords are mentioned in a page in the context of normal writing – that is, not just mindlessly repeated all over the page, but actually used in intelligible ways – the more likely that page will be found for those keywords.
This is what’s called keyword “quality” – it means that you are actually talking about the keywords on your page, rather than just listing them to elevate your search rankings. Listing tons of words is another old school tactic and search engines get around this by looking for quality. The problem with creating this kind of quality for a commercial site is that it can create (as I mentioned before) some odd looking pages, especially if you are trying to sell a high-dollar, exclusive product like a luxury car.
The redirection trick works like this: A web site operator (in this case, BMW Europe) sets up one of these pages loaded with quality keywords (BMW, car, luxury, etc., all in quality sentences or context) to pull a higher ranking in the search listing. The unwitting Google user clicks on that link and is magically taken to BMW Europe’s homepage, which happens to have very little wording on it – just lots of pictures and other stuff you’d expect on a normal auto manufacturer site. The trick here is that the user is actually taken to the keyword-loaded page and then redirected to BMW’s homepage without ever noticing that they actually went through this hidden “gateway.” Since this is against Google’s terms of service, BMW Europe got banned from Google’s listings until they changed their pages.
Questionable Search Engine Tactic One: Comment Spamming
Today, the first in a rogue's gallery of questionable search engine tactics:
Tactic: Comment Spamming; Level: Very Evil – Search engines base a substantial portion of a site’s ranking on how many actual links on the web point to the site, and you’ll notice quickly that tactics to increase the number of these links dominate this list. Some of these tactics are borderline legitimate while others are truly evil; this one may be the most evil of all.
If you spend much time on the web, you’ve probably come across weblogs (like this one), or so-called “blogs,” where people post their thoughts, opinions or various specialized news items. Blogs are absurdly popular right now – even the chairman of General Motors has one – and anyone can set one up in a matter of minutes.
Unfortunately, the popularity of blogs has made them easy marks for all sorts of abuse. Because most blogs by default allow anyone to comment on the articles that are posted there, spammers and quite a few disreputable search engine optimization outfits watch for new blogs and then immediately fill the comments sections with advertisements – some blatant, some subtle – that link to their sites.
Why not just create pages and pages of links on their own sites and click them to generate more search hits? Well, they may do that as well, but spamming through a variety of different websites actually creates the impression to the search engine that the links may be of higher quality because they come from so many different places. All search engines are built to ignore many links from the same places – that’s old school. But in analyzing a huge variety of clicks from many different places, a search engine has to work much harder to determine what’s legitimate.
Why is this tactic so evil? First, it creates a ton of bogus links on the web, and thus just adds noise to whole system. It’s deceptive to the point of being fraudulent. Worst of all, it treads on someone’s personal space – like mom’s needlepoint weblog – to help someone else’s commercial enterprise. If you come across a search engine optimization company that promises a huge variety of quality links to elevate your listings, ask them how they are doing it, in detail – it’s possible that comment spamming will be illegal one of these days, so you don’t want to have your business’ name associated with it.
Tactic: Comment Spamming; Level: Very Evil – Search engines base a substantial portion of a site’s ranking on how many actual links on the web point to the site, and you’ll notice quickly that tactics to increase the number of these links dominate this list. Some of these tactics are borderline legitimate while others are truly evil; this one may be the most evil of all.
If you spend much time on the web, you’ve probably come across weblogs (like this one), or so-called “blogs,” where people post their thoughts, opinions or various specialized news items. Blogs are absurdly popular right now – even the chairman of General Motors has one – and anyone can set one up in a matter of minutes.
Unfortunately, the popularity of blogs has made them easy marks for all sorts of abuse. Because most blogs by default allow anyone to comment on the articles that are posted there, spammers and quite a few disreputable search engine optimization outfits watch for new blogs and then immediately fill the comments sections with advertisements – some blatant, some subtle – that link to their sites.
Why not just create pages and pages of links on their own sites and click them to generate more search hits? Well, they may do that as well, but spamming through a variety of different websites actually creates the impression to the search engine that the links may be of higher quality because they come from so many different places. All search engines are built to ignore many links from the same places – that’s old school. But in analyzing a huge variety of clicks from many different places, a search engine has to work much harder to determine what’s legitimate.
Why is this tactic so evil? First, it creates a ton of bogus links on the web, and thus just adds noise to whole system. It’s deceptive to the point of being fraudulent. Worst of all, it treads on someone’s personal space – like mom’s needlepoint weblog – to help someone else’s commercial enterprise. If you come across a search engine optimization company that promises a huge variety of quality links to elevate your listings, ask them how they are doing it, in detail – it’s possible that comment spamming will be illegal one of these days, so you don’t want to have your business’ name associated with it.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Singing the Praises of PDF
For those of you who don't work in the art department, you've probably grown familiar with Adobe's PDF file format by surfing the web — you've run into a site here or there that has documents (often printable ones) in Acrobat PDF format. To read these files, you need Acrobat Reader, which is free, although today many computers come with the ability to read PDF files on their own. Put simply, PDF is a universal file format for documents — put something into a PDF format, and just about anyone just about anywhere can read it, exactly the way you formatted it.
PDF files make a lot of sense for businesses like banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms who need to put legal forms online for their customers to download. PDFs are also useful for anyone who manufactures or sells products and puts a lot of time and money into brochures or sell sheets — the PDF format preserves all the layout, typography and graphics.
But PDF is also enormously useful in a production environment, and more and more companies involved in printing, publishing and (believe it or not) screenprinting and decoration are beginning to use the format in their production workflow. PDF has the advantage of being an open format which can incorporate both vector and bitmap artwork into a single file, and PDF even includes features built specifically for production workflow, like annotation and protection. I'll talk more about how PDF is changing the production world in the next few days; in the meantime, brush up on the advantages of PDF workflow here.
PDF files make a lot of sense for businesses like banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms who need to put legal forms online for their customers to download. PDFs are also useful for anyone who manufactures or sells products and puts a lot of time and money into brochures or sell sheets — the PDF format preserves all the layout, typography and graphics.
But PDF is also enormously useful in a production environment, and more and more companies involved in printing, publishing and (believe it or not) screenprinting and decoration are beginning to use the format in their production workflow. PDF has the advantage of being an open format which can incorporate both vector and bitmap artwork into a single file, and PDF even includes features built specifically for production workflow, like annotation and protection. I'll talk more about how PDF is changing the production world in the next few days; in the meantime, brush up on the advantages of PDF workflow here.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Windows Service Pack 2
For those of you that use Windows - which I'll wager is most of you, except for the ones in the art departments - the much-anticipated and oft-delayed Service Pack 2 for Windows XP is finally available from Microsoft. If you're running Windows XP, you'll probably want to get your hands on this fairly soon, although I'd recommend waiting at least a week or two to find out if any major issues arise with popular software packages. Service Pack 2 will also install automatically over the next month or so if you have automatic updates enabled in XP.
Service Pack 2 resolves many of the burning security and vulnerability issues that have plagued Windows XP and Internet Explorer for some time (for a mind-boggling list of security vulnerabilities, click here - it's guaranteed to keep you up at night). The update includes a new firewall that is enabled by default and changes to Internet Explorer - such as a popup blocker - that have been part of competing browsers for years.
Service Pack 2 doesn't really do that much that you couldn't do yourself in terms of protection, but it does bundle it all into one neat package. Whether it will do a better job of preventing attacks from hackers and viruses in the future remains to be seen - Windows is a major target for hackers, and I doubt that will change.
Perhaps a more important question is, How many of you are even running Windows XP? I'll wager at least half of the PCs in this industry run Windows 98 or earlier. Unless you've purchased a new PC recently, there just isn't that much incentive to upgrade operating systems. So while Microsoft's update may benefit some users, there will still be plenty of computers left vulnerable. Continue to exercise caution....
Service Pack 2 resolves many of the burning security and vulnerability issues that have plagued Windows XP and Internet Explorer for some time (for a mind-boggling list of security vulnerabilities, click here - it's guaranteed to keep you up at night). The update includes a new firewall that is enabled by default and changes to Internet Explorer - such as a popup blocker - that have been part of competing browsers for years.
Service Pack 2 doesn't really do that much that you couldn't do yourself in terms of protection, but it does bundle it all into one neat package. Whether it will do a better job of preventing attacks from hackers and viruses in the future remains to be seen - Windows is a major target for hackers, and I doubt that will change.
Perhaps a more important question is, How many of you are even running Windows XP? I'll wager at least half of the PCs in this industry run Windows 98 or earlier. Unless you've purchased a new PC recently, there just isn't that much incentive to upgrade operating systems. So while Microsoft's update may benefit some users, there will still be plenty of computers left vulnerable. Continue to exercise caution....
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Product Sourcing Search Engines
How do you find products? Do you use printed catalogs? Or supplier websites? Or do you pay for tools like ASI or SAGE provide for searching products? As much as I'd like to see more automated processing of orders in the promotional products industry (and groups like the ePromoStandards Alliance are doing an admirable job of advancing the technology here), the simple act of finding products in the first place can be incredibly cumbersome, especially if you don't want to pay a fee for access to the information.
We've been trying out a product sourcing experiment called Product Buffet that allows anyone to search tens of thousands of promotional products all in one place, for free, and takes you to the supplier's website once you've found the product you like. Try it out and let me know what you think. I believe information should be free so Product Buffet works like any other search engine - it's free, but will soon have simple advertising to support it. Is this an idea whose time has come? I'll leave that up to you to decide. Try it and let me know what you think.
We've been trying out a product sourcing experiment called Product Buffet that allows anyone to search tens of thousands of promotional products all in one place, for free, and takes you to the supplier's website once you've found the product you like. Try it out and let me know what you think. I believe information should be free so Product Buffet works like any other search engine - it's free, but will soon have simple advertising to support it. Is this an idea whose time has come? I'll leave that up to you to decide. Try it and let me know what you think.
Welcome!
Welcome to PromoTech Blog, the weblog discussing technology issues in the Promotional Products/Advertising Specialty Industry (including premiums and incentive and reward programs). My name is Brent Buford and I run a company called eBlox that provides technology services and software to the industry. I also pen a monthly column for Identity Marketing magazine devoted to technology issues for industry professionals; those columns can be viewed in our Resource Center, which is free for anyone - industry and non-industry alike - to use (read a press release about the Resource Center here). I'll also be publishing and discussing abridged versions of those columns in this weblog, although my main focus will be on current issues and trends in the industry.
Numerous technological hurdles face our industry; despite the advances of the internet and e-commerce, many distributors and suppliers still process orders the old-fashioned way, using phone and fax. Because the industry is fragmented, with thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of salespeople, inertia and entropy tend to keep us behind the curve when compared to other industries with similar supply chains. All of this is changing, of course, but not rapidly. I'm not here to determine whether that's an inherently good or bad thing – for some of you, change really translates into enormous risk.
But for those of us who believe technology can actually benefit every link in the sales and distribution process, keeping up with technological advances (and mishaps) is a way of life. For those of you realize that technology is important for your business but don't have time to keep up with the latest news, consider me your geek filter. I'll let you know what's important and when to take notice. And please, tell me what you'd like to hear about - whether it's product sourcing, company stores, wireless networks, security and privacy issues, or anything else that interests you - I'll do my best to break it down into plain English.
Numerous technological hurdles face our industry; despite the advances of the internet and e-commerce, many distributors and suppliers still process orders the old-fashioned way, using phone and fax. Because the industry is fragmented, with thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of salespeople, inertia and entropy tend to keep us behind the curve when compared to other industries with similar supply chains. All of this is changing, of course, but not rapidly. I'm not here to determine whether that's an inherently good or bad thing – for some of you, change really translates into enormous risk.
But for those of us who believe technology can actually benefit every link in the sales and distribution process, keeping up with technological advances (and mishaps) is a way of life. For those of you realize that technology is important for your business but don't have time to keep up with the latest news, consider me your geek filter. I'll let you know what's important and when to take notice. And please, tell me what you'd like to hear about - whether it's product sourcing, company stores, wireless networks, security and privacy issues, or anything else that interests you - I'll do my best to break it down into plain English.
