Natural Search Blog

Welcome to Natural Search Blog

Natural Search Blog provides articles on search engine optimization including keyword reasearch, on-page factors, link-building, social media optimization, local search optimization, image search optimization, and mobile SEO.

In addition to natural search optimization topics, we also cover internet marketing, ecommerce, web design, usability, and technology.

Recent Entries

Yahoo’s Recent Spider Improvement Beats Google’s

Googlebot Spider

Yahoo!’s Search Blog announced yesterday that they were making some final changes to their spider, (named “Slurp”), standardizing their crawlers to provide a common DNS signature for identification/authorization purposes.

Previously, Slurp’s requests may have come from IP addresses associated with inktomisearch.com, and now they should all come from IPs associated with domains in this standard syntax:

[something].crawl.yahoo.net

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Posted by of Silvery on 06/06/2007

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Filed under: Google, Spiders, Yahoo , , , , , ,

Factory Offers Up Rooftop Space for Ads

A company named Kumomo has issued a press release recently, announcing that it will sell rooftop ad space on one of Malaysia’s largest factories. Is this to be the first node in a network of roof billboard advertising space? The ads would be intended to be seen in Google Maps/Earth and via airplanes.

The rooftop ad would be installed by the California company, RoofAds, which specializes in painting logos and art onto the tops of buildings. Although Kumomo’s site and press release are vague about details on the roof in question, after considerable searching of satellite pics in Google Maps I was finally able to locate the location of the building where they’re intending to place the ad. Disconcertingly, the exact place is mostly obscured by clouds in the Google satellite pic, or perhaps it’s the factory’s own smoke:

Malaysian Factory Offering Roof Space for Ad
click to enlarge

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Posted by of Silvery on 06/06/2007

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Filed under: Advertising, Maps , , , , , , , ,

“Roofvertising” mentioned in the news

Greg Sterling and I were quoted in a news story in yesterday’s USAToday by Craig Wilson in an article titled “Shout a message from the rooftops to the world“, along with Google Earth’s Chikai Ohazama. The article is about how people are increasingly trying to use Google Maps and other online mapping systems to communicate messages or display ads through them. People place the messages on rooftops or other ground surfaces which may be seen via the satellite pix or aerial photos in those interfaces.

Rooftop Advertising
Rooftop Ads or “Roofvertising” is becoming more common

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Posted by of Silvery on 06/05/2007

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Filed under: Advertising, Maps, News , , , , , , ,

Plea for a New Open Format: Open Local Profile Format

My most-recent Locals Only column just pubbed at SearchEngineLand.com, titled “A Call To Standardize Local Search Listings“.

The benefactor of Open Local Profile Format would be Main Street
Open Local Profile Format

In it, I’m calling for the companies operating in the local search space to come together and agree upon a common data format protocol that would allow businesses and organizations to more easily submit their directory profile information to the great plethora of local info sites where users go to get information. The local search engines, online yellow pages, and various vertical directories should come together to reduce costs/complexity for businesses, and to facilitate improved information for consumers, similar to how the major search engines last year came together to agree on one common submission protocol – Sitemaps – for submitting sites’ page links to them. Read on for more details.

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Posted by of Silvery on 06/04/2007

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Filed under: Local Search, Yellow Pages , , , , , , , , ,

Google Map API to Now Include Ads

InfoWorld reports that at a conference yesterday, Google Maps engineer Andrew Eland announced that Google has integrated its AdSense program with Google Maps so that those using their Maps API and developer tools would be able to derive money off the clickthroughs to the map ads when displayed on their site pages.

Closeup - Ads in Google Maps
Detail – Google Map Ads

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Posted by of Silvery on 06/01/2007

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Filed under: Advertising, Google, Local Search, Maps , , , , ,

7 Habits of Highly Effective PPC Advertisers

I just saw this great article on “Seven Habits Of Highly Effective Pay-Per-Click Advertisers” by John Ellis, who does search marketing for Gaylord Entertainment, and I thought it was worth highlighting.

Some of the tips include:

…and more. I think there’s some great stuff here – both for paid search newbies as well as veterans.

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Posted by of Silvery on 05/31/2007

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Filed under: Monetization of Search, Paid Search , , , ,

Misguided Science Fiction Writers Advise U.S. on Homeland Security

SigmaUSA Today has reported in “Sci-fi writers join war on terror” that a small group of science fiction writers have been contacted by the U.S. government to advise on new and innovative ways that security could be improved. The group, called Sigma, was formed about 15 years ago by writer Arlan Andrews and was specifically intended to advise the government on advanced technology issues.

Their motto seems ominous in context of recent-history political trends and frighteningly nationalistic: “Science Fiction in the National Interest“. I think their involvement is a bit horrifying, misguided, and more than a bit egotistically self-grandiose. Read on for more details.

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Posted by of Silvery on 05/31/2007

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Filed under: Futurism, News, Security, technology , , , , , , , ,

Not a Stumble – eBay to Acquire StumbleUpon

In yet another social media acquisition move, eBay has announced today that they’re acquiring StumbleUpon for approximately $75 million.
StumbleUpon purchased by eBay
This closely follows Fox Interactive Media’s acquisition of Photobucket and Flektor along with CBS Interactive’s purchase of Wallstrip.com and fm.com. If you recall, Google has purchased YouTube while MySpace is already owned by Fox. Yahoo! has been buying social media types of sites for quite some time now, what with their earlier purchases of Flickr, del.icio.us, and such.

All the exuberance and hefty valuations seem to smack a bit of the over-valuation and acquisition craze just prior to the dot-bomb i-apocolypse. Purchasing a social media web 2.0 site or two just seems so trendy at the moment. These sites have some undeniable amounts of traffic and associated marketshare, but won’t there eventually have to be a bit of fallout? Won’t users eventually migrate over to a primary dominator in any given type of site?

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Posted by of Silvery on 05/30/2007

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Filed under: General, News , , ,

AMA Hot Topic Series: Search Marketing NYC

The AMA Hot Topic Series on Search Marketing in New York this past Friday went well. Presentations were given by Stephan Spencer (Netconcepts), Alan Rimm-Kaufman (Rimm-Kaufman Group), Neil Patel (Advantage Consulting Services), Maile Ohye (Google), and myself, Chris Silver Smith (Netconcepts GravityStream).

If you missed out on this, there’s yet another opportunity to attend the seminar day in Chicago. For more info, visit the AMA Hot Top Series: Search Marketing page. I understand that this Hot Topic Series is to be expanded out with another few cities in the Fall, so stay tuned.

As promised, here’s my PowerPoint presentation on how Content is the Basis of SEO. (8.4 mb download)

social media marketing companies

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Posted by of Silvery on 05/30/2007

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Filed under: Conferences, Marketing ,

Google Purchase of DoubleClick Under FTC Investigation

The NY Times reports that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has started a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick, an industry executive briefed on the agency’s plans said yesterday.

Some consumer groups have raised questions about privacy issues involved in having companies which handle more and more of the end-to-end process in users’ clickstreams through the internet, since holding more of the links in the process chain inevitably means being able to ascertain individual’s actions, interests, motives and desires in their day-to-day lives. Read on for more info.

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Posted by of stephan on 05/29/2007

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Filed under: News, Search Engine Optimization, SEO , , , , ,

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