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
Google Adds Data to Georgia Maps?
Google announced additional map data for Georgia today on the Lat Long Blog, along with a few other countries.
This announcement comes on the heels of explanations a few weeks ago about why Google Maps was missing data for the Georgian Republic. A number of sources on the internet had claimed that Google had yanked map data for Georgia in order to not be facilitating the war that sparked in the region with Russia. Google stated that this was untrue — that the region had never had detailed roads displayed because they didn’t have a good source of information for the area yet. (I was one of the people duped by the spurious claims — surprising, since it’s patently apparent that the Russian military would ALREADY have good maps of their region!)
However, even though it’s great that Google is beefing up their map data, I have to say that publicising it and releasing it as they have done seems terribly precipitate. If you look at the screengrab above, you’ll see that the map data they added is just city name labels — no streets or roads connecting them up — and not even dots or outlines to show where the cities are actually located! (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/04/2008
Permalink | | 
Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google, Maps Georgia, Google-Maps
NebuAd Aborts Big Brother
The Washington Post today reported that NebuAd has halted plans to deploy the deep-packet inspection tracking of internet users for their advertising platform. I’d earlier predicted that consumer sensitivity about NebuAd could derail their business plans, and I reported how lawmakers pressured and ISP not to share data with NebuAd.
Meanwhile, Congress is examining issues around exploiting user data for behavioral marketing and targeted advertising, and the heavy uncertainty in the air would make NebuAd’s entire business modle appear to be a very unstable foundation. (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/04/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Advertising behavioral targeting, deep-packet inspection, Internet Privacy, NebuAd
Chrome – Google Browser Launching
Google has officially confirmed that they’ll be launching “Chrome” — their newly developed, open-source browser, into the wild tomorrow for the Windows platform.
If you recall, I’d previously posted about rumors of a Google browser here and here a year ago, despite Google executives previously indicating that they would not build another browser. A number of other analysts dismissed my observations that a Google browser would be advantageous to the company and complimentary to their various other applications and services – but, I’m now proved right and Google’s efforts to obscure the fact of their browser initiatives appear in retrospect to have been intended to keep the whole thing as top secret as possible until deployment. In 2006, Google CEO Eric Schmidt had stated, “We would only do so…if we thought there was a real user benefit.” (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/02/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Google browsers, Chrome, Google, Google Chrome
Decider Enters Local Search
Humorous faux-newspaper, The Onion, has launched a new local directory site called Decider in beta. While The Onion is famous for its satirical “news” articles, Decider is a decidedly serious guide intended to complement their other offerings like serious classifieds and the A.V. Club (The Onion’s arts and entertainment site).
Decider brings local business listings for bars, restaurants, music venues, events, and reviews. It appears to be targeted to the college-to-early-thirties demographic, and sports advertisements on the pages.
When I heard about Decider, I immediately though, “oh, yet another business directory site among the many others,” — a thought apparently shared to some degree by Andrew Shotland. (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/28/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Local Search, Local Search Optimization, News, Online Directories, Yellow Pages business directory, Decider, local directory, Local Search
Dan Heath, 5th Keynote at SES San Jose 08
Dan Heath, one of the co-authors of the book, “Made to Stick“, spoke on the last day of the Search Engine Strategies conference, last week. Dan is a Consultant to the Policy Programs for the Aspen Institute.
Dan Heath presenting Made To Stick’s hallmarks of sticky ideas:
Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories.
Dan presented the main concepts from his book, covering why some ideas survive and spread while other ideas die. As with a number of SES conferences in the past, many attendees apparently decided that this last day of the conference would be of lesser worth, so the audience for this keynote was a lot sparser than on previous days. This was a shame, because, aside from the Orion Panel discussion, this preso was likely the one that would’ve been of the highest worth to marketers.
How do you introduce an idea so that it may catch fire and spread? What are some characteristics of sticky ideas that make them viral and persistent? (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/27/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Conferences, Marketing, Seminars Dan Heath, stickiness, sticky ideas, Viral-Marketing
Amazon Acquires Social Media Book Site Shelfari
Amazon has acquired Shelfari, a site where people can share their reading lists, review books, and find books to read. Others have noted that Shelfari sports a cool user interface, but I note that there are quite a few book list sharing sites out there like it, such as LibraryThing, aNobii, and GoodReads.
I’m not sure that the UI alone is really enough to differentiate Shelfari from the pack, particularly if Amazon over-commercializes it. I think if it tries to push book sales too much, it might easily disaffect the usership and they could easily swing over to one of the handful of competitors. (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/26/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Design, Social Media Optimization Amazon, aNobii, GoodReads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, Social-Media
Googledance 2008
The Googledance party was held last night at the Googleplex for SES Conference attendees, and it lived up to its traditional party-on-a-grand-scale reputation for which it has become known.
The theme this year was “Glow in the Dark”, and they gave out t-shirts which flouresced nicely under blacklights, and those endothermic glow sticks that can be linked up for bracelets or necklaces. In one area was a large Lite Brite station that allowed party-goers to make colorful messages or illustrations of their choosing with the translucent pegs.
One really cool entertainment was the “Glow Graffiti” – they had set up a couple of different stations to allow the crowd to do digital graffiti — using laser pointers to write on the sides of a couple of buildings. A camera tracks where one drags the laser pointer beam on the wall’s surface, then a computer captures the trajectories and redisplays the lines drawn back onto the wall continuously with a projector. In this way, one can draw all over the side of a building with light.
“Google” tagged in digital graffiti on side of building
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/20/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Conferences, Google Digital Graffiti, Google, Googledance, graffiti, guerrilla marketing
Orion Panel: Tech & Info Giants – 3rd Keynote at SES San Jose 08
The Orion Keynote Panel, “Technical & Information Giants”, touched on fairly broad topic areas this afternoon at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose.
Speakers included Matt Cutts (Google Engineer), Rich LeFurgy (Partner, Archer Advisors), Kirsten Mangers (Co-Founder & CEO, WebVisible), Robert Scoble (Managing Director, FastCompany.TV), Danny Sullivan (Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land), and Tim Westergren (Founder, Pandora).
Conference Chair and moderator, Kevin Ryan, framed up the introduction to the panel by using numerous pop culture video snippets to emphasize the impact of Google, social media, and the overall internet on everyday lives. Some of the funnier snippets included quotes from South Park and Californication. (more…)
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/19/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Conferences, Local Search, Mobile Search Conferences, search-engine-strategies, ses, Urbanspoon
Satya Nadella, 2nd Keynote at SES San Jose 08
Satya Nadella (Microsoft’s Senior Vice President of the Search, Portal & Advertising Platform Group) spoke at this morning’s keynote at the Search Engine Strategies Conference.
Nadella spoke on how Microsoft approaches search and how the company intends to shape trends in search development and how they intend to exploit them.
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/19/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Conferences, MSN Search MicroSoft, Satya Nadella, search-engine-strategies, ses
Lee Siegal, 1st Keynote at SES San Jose 08
On opening night at the Search Engine Strategies Conference this week in San Jose, Kevin Ryan () spoke with Lee Siegal about his book, “Against the Machine”, and the ideas in it.
Kevin Ryan Interviews Lee Siegal, SES Keynote
Siegal proposes that the internet culture is perhaps damaging our attention span and he points out the benefits of having intentionality about what we do. Interesting!
Lee Siegal, author of “Against the Machine”
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/19/2008
Permalink | | Print
| Trackback | Comments (0) | Comments RSS
Filed under: Conferences Kevin Ryan, Lee Siegal, search-engine-strategies, Search-Engine-Strategies-Conference, ses
