SoloSEO

Google Helps You With Mother’s Day

Posted by Michael D Jensen on April 30th, 2008

I was trying to figure out for sure if Mother’s Day was this Sunday or the next, so of course I went to Google. Thankfully Google knows when holidays are, albeit they use Wikipedia. So now I know, Mother’s day is May 11th. And you know too (so get her something!).

One of Google’s more well known features is related searches, and these suggestions seem right on for helping people like me gear up for Mother’s day (for my wife and my Mom). There are mother’s day poems, mother’s day cards, mother’s day crafts, and mother’s day ideas.

Of course you could make her smile by following this Adwords ad:

Or if you really want to wow her, get her a TIGER!

Whatever you do, just don’t forget it’s Mother’s day on May 11th!

Add comment Visited 1551 times April 30th, 2008 Michael D Jensen

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SEO and the Presidential Candidates, Part 2

Posted by Michael D Jensen on January 8th, 2008

With the Presidential primaries well under way, it’s time for a follow-up to my March 2007 post about how the Presidential candidates rate for SEO. Conveniently the same top 3 candidates in both parties are both considered the top 3 candidates, so I’m going to stick with the same in my new analysis (Democrats: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards. Republicans: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain). In my previous post I looked at a few points that haven’t changed, like age of domain and the choice of domain URL, so refer to that post for that analysis.

This analysis looks at basic SEO metrics and compares data from January 2008 to March 2007. A few new measurements are given following these, including PPC branding and a new metric called IndexRank. And for fun we’ll come up with the winners from both parties in terms of their effectiveness in SEO.

Backlinks

Backlinks, or inbound links, are how many sites link to your site. These figures are from Yahoo.

Barack Obama leads in backlinks by about 150,000 backlinks. John Edwards started with having almost 6 times less than Hillary and beats her by 80,000 backlinks.
In the Republican field, John McCain started off with very few (comparatively) backlinks and still ends with 100,000 less than Mitt Romney. Romney leads Rudy by about 50,000 links.

Technorati Links

This is used as a measure of popularity in the blogosphere world. The more the better.

Obama again leads on Technorati links and John Edwards and Clinton keep their same position, with Hillary having the most percentage increase.
Mitt Romney started well ahead of both Rudy and John (2.5 X more and 5 X more respectively) and still leads in Technorati links. Rudy surpasses John McCain with a larger increase in links.

Alexa Rank

I know Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s an interesting comparison. The lower the number, “the better”. The number represents the rank of the website out of the top websites on the Internet in terms of traffic. The most visited site on the Internet is ranked 1. A zero (0) means either an error or not enough traffic to rank.

All of the Democratic candidates have seen a drop in their Alexa Rank since March 2007, with John Edwards taking the worst drop. Barack Obama leads with the best rank.
All of the Republican candidates see a better Alexa ranking, although anything was better than Rudy’s rank in March 2007. Mitt Romney leads with the best rank.

Page Strength

All candidates made significant strides, as would be expected. PageStrength is not a measurement of how good the pages are, but of how well-known, cited, visited, and linked to a site is.
John Edwards has the highest PageStrength while Barack jumped the most, moving from third to second.
John McCain made the most stride but also started as the lowest in PageStrength. Both McCain and Romney end up with the same PageStrength, both beating out Hillary’s PageStrength.

Indexed Pages

Google and Yahoo both give a different number of pages in their index, so I’ll show both, Google/Yahoo.

These numbers are all over the place, it’s hard to say who reports more accurately (Google vs. Yahoo). However, there’s no doubt that Obama has created tons of content (probably a lot of user-generated content).

PPC Branding

I’m not going to recap the PPC from March 2007 because the keywords I looked at were only used by 2 of the candidates. This time I chose to look at the use of PPC for their own name, which I feel is a reflection of their PPC campaign. If you’re not running ads for your brand (your name) you’re probably not running much of a PPC campaign.

Barack Obama - Ads by Obama and Rudy
Hillary Clinton - Ad by Rudy
John Edwards - Ad by Rudy
Rudy Giuliani - Ad by Rudy
Mitt Romney - Ads by Rudy and Mike Huckabee
John McCain - Ads by McCain and Rudy

Rudy clearly comes out a winner, but keep in mind this is only a snapshot. If you follow these links at different times of day and different geographical locations you may see very different results. These are coming from the West Coast.

IndexRank - a measurement of content freshness

This metric is from 0-10 where 10 is the highest. The higher the number the better the content growth, freshness, and the more indexed the site is by Google.

Hillary Clinton - 8
Barack Obama - 8
John Edwards - 5
Mitt Romney - 9
John McCain - 8
Rudy Giuliani - 6

Mitt Romney wins out with a 9 above even the Democrats. Hillary and Obama are both at 8 and John Edwards lags way behind the whole group with a 5. Rudy lags behind the Republican candidates with a 6.

The Winners

Back in March 2007 there was no clear SEO winner in either party. After 10 months of campaigning, you can really see a lot of changes in all the candidates, some more than others.

In the Democratic party, Barack Obama clearly trumps both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the growth of their site and the pursuit in SEO.

In the Republican party, its not as clear but Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani both have made great strides, but I think Mitt Romney’s advantage in traffic, IndexRank, and Technorati links gives him an edge over Giuliani.

7 comments Visited 3518 times January 8th, 2008 Michael D Jensen

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What the Customer Actually Wanted

Posted by Michael D Jensen on November 3rd, 2007

47 comments Visited 48408 times November 3rd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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LinkedIn Wants Me to Accept or Deny Jesus?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on June 19th, 2007

I’ve always enjoyed LinkedIn, but I’m not sure about this new feature. They want me to Accept or Deny Jesus?

I felt like Peter (in the Bible) for just a moment!

Anyone involved in building software and applications knows text cropping is always a tough part. Obviously I was invited to be friends with someone named “Christopher” but LinkedIn cuts off after 6 characters. I just loved the wording on the buttons and how they seemed to fit just perfectly.

I love LinkedIn, and I’m enjoying Facebook too. LinkedIn has made it much easier for me to add and connect with friends though, anyone else feel that way? Well if you know me, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn:

If you don’t know me, share a comment or drop me an email and get to know me! If you want to find me on facebook, then try searching for my name. There’s already a good sized network of SEOs on there (not as big as LinkedIn from what I can tell), and I’ve found some students I taught in a class before. Facebook has put themselves in a great position for being a huge leader in the social network world with their new API.

5 comments Visited 4363 times June 19th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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New RSS Reader by Apple for Windows (and a sweet, fast browser)

Posted by Michael D Jensen on June 11th, 2007

You’ve used Google Reader and BlogLines, but have you used Safari? Safari has been my RSS Reader (and browser) of choice ever since its debut years ago, but now its available for Windows as well! It’s not a web-based reader like others, but you can read, search, and sort all of your RSS feeds offline as well as online. Its subtle number count in your bookmark bar keeps you well informed when new content opens up.

Some other cool features? Resize your text areas (great for blogging!) and a nice clean look for buttons:

Oh yeah, and its FAST. Faster in HTML performance, Javascript Performance, and Application Launch compared to IE, FireFox, and Opera. Check it out for yourself. Here’s a screenshot, and the blurb from Apple’s site:

From Apple’s site:

Built-in RSS.
Scan all the latest news, information, and articles from thousands of websites in one simple-to-read, searchable article list delivered right to you. The built-in RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader in Safari tells you when new articles or blog posts have been added to your favorite sites, so you never have to guess.

Whenever you land on a page that offers an RSS feed, Safari displays an RSS icon in the address field. Click it and you view the simple RSS feed. Bookmark it and Safari tells you how many updates have been added since your last visit. The RSS view in Safari is customizable, so you can adjust article length or sort and filter articles by date, title, and source. You can also use the built-in search field to find articles relating to topics of interest. All from one place: Safari.

If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to our feed (using your favorite RSS Reader) with this URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SoloSEO

1 comment Visited 4221 times June 11th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Happy Birthday to Aaron!

Posted by Michael D Jensen on April 24th, 2007

It’s a big day for Aaron here at SoloSEO! Happy Birthday! Aaron has been such a great inspiration and motivation to me. He is an amazing entrepreneur and an amazing dad to his family.

I hope you have an awesome birthday Aaron! You deserve it!

Add comment Visited 1754 times April 24th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Don’t April Fools Yourself

Posted by Michael D Jensen on April 2nd, 2007

I always have to try something to get my wife on April Fools, so this year was no different. Turning the clocks forward 6 hours didn’t work because I missed a clock and her cell phone. I went so far as to feed the kids hot dogs for breakfast, convincing them they slept in and we were having lunch.

The prank that worked, but also backfired at the same time, was one I found online at Family Fun (by the way, it’s a great magazine for the kids, and quite inexpensive at $1 an issue). For the prank, you put a rubber band around the sprayer at your kitchen sink and point it towards where you stand when you turn on the faucet. My sprayer liked scotch tape better than a rubber band. Well, one minute after I taped and positioned the sprayer, I myself went to use the kitchen faucet, completely forgetting what I had just done. I was drenched, all over my right side. An hour or so later my wife woke up and eventually worked her way into the kitchen. It was hysterical! I laughed for a good 5 minutes. She laughed too, luckily.

Lesson learned? Be thorough on your pranks (all clocks and phones) and remember which pranks you pull so you don’t April Fools yourself.

Any good harmless April Fools joke that were successful for you? Any that backfired?

Add comment Visited 2490 times April 2nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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How do the Presidential Candidates Rate for SEO?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 13th, 2007

A recent article posted on Slashdot looked at various website design points of the top 6 Presidential Candidates. Here I compare SEO statistics of the top 6 Presidential Candidates’ websites: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain.

I will compare SEO statistics and information about the age of domain, length of domain registration, domain characteristics, backlinks, Technorati links, .edu links, Alexa Rank, Page Strength, indexed pages, supplemental results, name search on Google, other search terms on Google, and pay-per-click. The order of candidates is listed in order of “rank” within each category of statistics.

Age of Domain

This comes from either Alexa data or WHOIS data. The age of domain is important in SEO because older sites typically hold more credibility and trust with search engines.

Hillary Clinton - 22-Oct-2001
John Edwards - 16-Jul-1998
Barack Obama - 28-Dec-2004
John McCain - 17-Jul-1997
Mitt Romney - 08-Feb-2002
Rudy Giuliani - 17-Nov-2006

Length of Domain Registration

This statistic looks at how many years the domain has been registered for beyond the create date (based on WHOIS data), and the candidates are listed in descending order of year that the domain expires. It’s considered good SEO practice to register a domain for a longer amount of time (5+ years)

John McCain - 15 years, expires 26-Jan-2017
Hillary Clinton - 15 years, expires 22-Oct-2016
Barack Obama - 11 years, expires 28-Dec-2015
John Edwards - 11 years, expires 14-Jul-2009
Mitt Romney - 8 years, expires 08-Feb-2010
Rudy Giuliani - 2 years, expires 17-Nov-2008

Type in Domain

Everyone except Rudy Giuliani has a perfect type in domain for their name, so you can just type in their name, add the .com and you’re at their site. This may hurt Rudy a little, but his last name is hard to remember how to spell for many so perhaps joinrudy2008.com is better in some ways.

Backlinks

Backlinks, or inbound links, are how many sites link to your site. These figures are from Yahoo.

Barack Obama - 119,909
Hillary Clinton - 79,219
Mitt Romney - 39,245
Rudy Giuliani - 38,236
John Edwards - 15,498
John McCain - 7,428

Technorati Links

This is used as a measure of popularity in the blogosphere world. The more the better.

Barack Obama - 6,527
John Edwards - 4,952
Hillary Clinton - 3,710
Mitt Romney - 1,756
John McCain - 670
Rudy Giuliani - 342

.edu links

Links from educational institutions are regarded as passing more weight or confidence as a backlink, and are highly desirable (and hard to get).

Hillary Clinton - 97
Barack Obama - 87
John Edwards - 35
Mitt Romney - 33
Rudy Giuliani - 21
John McCain - 0

Alexa Rank

I know Alexa isn’t perfect, but it’s an interesting comparison. The lower the number, “the better”. The number represents the rank of the website out of the top websites on the Internet in terms of traffic. The most visited site on the Internet is ranked 1. A zero (0) means either an error or not enough traffic to rank.

Barack Obama - 12,581
Hillary Clinton - 18,727
John Edwards - 33,485
Mitt Romney - 129,490
John McCain - 178,788
Rudy Giuliani - 0

Page Strength

John Edwards - 6.5/10
Hillary Clinton - 5.5/10
Barack Obama - 5/0
Mitt Romney - 4/10
Rudy Giuliani - 3.5/10
John McCain - 3.5/10

Indexed Pages

Google and Yahoo both give a different number of pages in their index, so I’ll show both, Google/Yahoo.

John Edwards - 4230/66
John McCain - 457/155
Hillary Clinton - 387/1133
Mitt Romney - 309/157
Barack Obama - 148/525
Rudy Giuliani - 91/34

Supplemental Results

If pages show up as supplemental results (use this query, just change domain) it means they aren’t carrying as much as weight as they could be and their rankings probably suffer. The figure shown below is supplemental/total indexed, as well as what percent of pages are supplemental results out of their total number of indexed pages (both from Google). Lower % is better.

John Edwards - 260/4230 (6%)
Mitt Romney - 71/309 (23%)
John McCain - 104/457 (23%)
Barack Obama - 35/148 (24%)
Rudy Giuliani - 38/91 (42%)
Hillary Clinton - 168/387 (43%)

Name search on Google

If you type in the candidate’s name in Google, where does their “official” election site come up in the SERPs?

Hillary Clinton - 1st result
Barack Obama - 1st result
John Edwards - 1st result
Mitt Romney - 1st result
Rudy Giuliani - 2nd result, 1st is Wikipedia entry
John McCain - 33rd result, 1st is his Senate page

Rankings for name, party, etc

Terms searched for included: presidential election, presidential candidates, 2008 elections, compare candidates, and candidates issues. The top 100 results were checked for each search term. If no ranking is listed below, the candidates site does not rank in the top 100 for that term.

Barack Obama - #35 for presidential candidates, #66 for candidates issues
Hillary Clinton - (none)
John Edwards - (none)
John McCain - (none)
Mitt Romney - (none)
Rudy Giuliani - (none)

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Terms searched for included: presidential election, presidential candidates, 2008 elections, compare candidates, candidates issues, democrat, democratic party, republican, and republican party. Certainly there are many others I could have typed for but these are ones I thought would be critical to any PPC campaign.

Barack Obama - presidential election, presidential candidates, 2008 elections, democrat, democratic party,
John McCain - presidential election, presidential candidates
Hillary Clinton - (none)
John Edwards - (none)
Mitt Romney - (none)
Rudy Giuliani - (none)

Obviously we are very early on in the elections, but certainly SEO efforts should be underway if they are going to occur at all. In some ways it is evident there are definitely SEO strategies in place, but what about the lack of PPC? What are some of your observations?

Also check out my post from yesterday about what Analytics programs the Presidential Candidates are using.

5 comments Visited 5116 times March 13th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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What do the Presidential Candidates use for Analytics?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 12th, 2007

I thought it would be interesting to look at all of the top presidential candidates and see what they are using for analytics for their site. I visited each site, viewed source, and looked for Javascript code or any other trace of analytics code I could find.

Hillary Clinton uses Google Analytics

John Edwards uses Google Analytics

Barack Obama uses Google Analytics

Rudy Giuliani uses Google Analytics

Mitt Romney uses Omniture

John McCain uses either Revenue Science (if they have some analytics system built-in) or it is a server-based (non-Javascript) analytics solution.

We use Google Analytics for SoloSEO but I have heard Omniture is a great solution too. Setting up with Omniture takes a little bit of work because you need to put in variables for each page (like page name), but other than that it is pretty easy and has lots of features.

I would suggest the candidates use Crazy Egg and track where people are clicking around on the site. We’ve discovered a lot of interesting behavior on our site, I can only imagine having that much more traffic and learning what you can do to maximize it.

7 comments Visited 7496 times March 12th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Meet your Local SEOs

Posted by Michael D Jensen on March 8th, 2007

If you don’t already know SEOs that live around you, use your search engine superpowers to find them, then contact them and meet up for an hour and get to know each other. It’s fun!

I live in a small college town, so for a while I thought I was the only one doing SEO stuff around here. I fell upon SEOThursday.com, now EnviSEO.com (a great SEO blog by the way), and noticed Nathaniel lived in the same city as me. After corresponding a few times we finally got together for a nice chat of SEO this evening. We met at a cafe downtown with an SEO buddy of his, Jay, and had a great time just talking SEO. Thanks guys!

The neat thing about meeting people is you never know what will come of it. So get outside your box and meet some people. You’ll have to take the initiative to set it up, but the perspective you can get from others, even on just life itself, can be priceless.

UPDATE:

I didn’t have Jay’s blog when I first posted, so I wanted to include that here. It is a search engine optimization and marketing blog called SEOFoSho and it contains some neat insights from a true SEO. Jay and Nathaniel of EnviSEO are both excellent SEOs I would recommend working with anytime and I’m following both their blogs now. They’ve got quite a client list and are two of the nicest guys you could ever meet.

Add comment Visited 3420 times March 8th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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