| LED Digest 1769: Local Search not Ready? and DMOZ Dying? |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ March 19, 2004 Issue #1769 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= <Moderator Comment> ~ Getting Away... --== The Local Search Buzz ==-- ~ Ken Evoy "...right now...local search is 'not ready for prime time'." ~ David Yancey "...this unserved part of the market will be [huge] three or five years from now." --== Stand-Alone Optimized Pages ==-- ~ Jenny Halasz "Multiple domains pointed to your site will be a problem if they don't redirect." ~ Tom Anson "What [Beth Earle] is describing are not 'doorway pages', but mini-sites." --== All About DMOZ ==-- ~ Marty R. Milette "I suspect that DMOZ is going to kill itself off." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== My Affiliates Outdoing Me? ==-- ~ Phil Weaver --== Trademark Use Guidelines ==-- ~ Marty R. Milette ===== CONTINUING ================================= <Moderator Comment> There's a great discussion going right now on "Local Search", and I urge you to take a few moments to read both Ken and David's interesting contributions in this issue. A quick announcement for you: next week will be a short one, there'll be issues of the LED just Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm taking off on a little adventure to Alaska (heli-skiing - actually snowboarding) and want to be far away from the daily routine. I'll be back in action on Monday the 29th. This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities you just can't pass up! I'm really looking forward to being up in the Chugach mountains, breathing fresh air, riding powder, and meeting all sorts of new friends -- who hopefully know nothing of Internet marketing (and therefore don't want to talk about it!). Take care LEDer, and remember to jump on those chances to "get away" when you can. I believe that they come along for a reason. :-) Best wishes, Adam ------------------- From: Ken Evoy Subject: Local search Interesting post, Adam. While "local search" is a hot topic, I'm convinced that everyone on the "local search bandwagon" is about 3-5 years too early. To paraphrase Bill Gates, "It's amazing how little gets done in one year, but amazing how much changes in 10." Well, that'll be local search. I'm convinced that the paper-bound Yellow Pages are destined for the dust bins, and I agree with you, Adam that... "Seems like everybody's jumping on this bandwagon." But... it is going to take a long, long time for local search to be a truly important source of business. Some major changes in mindset and habits will have to happen first... 1) The average Joe(sephine) will have to actually use the Web for local search. For that to happen, the Net has to be handy. Handier than one computer in the basement for example. And handier than having to dial up (yes, high-speed is finally catching on, also much longer than predicted by all the experts years ago, but it will still be a couple of years at least before we see 90% usage). 2) The Web-based search results will have to deliver better results than the paper-bound Yellow Page behemoths, and not just in their demo cities of New York or San Francisco, but in YOUR little burg in Oregon, too, Adam. (Mine is going to take a lot longer that.) 3) A lot of local search is REALLY local, so I'll still use my village directory for a long, long time. It'll be years before Google or Vivante will find me the 3 tailors in Hudson, Quebec. (Of course, Moore's Law and programming cleverness WILL eventually get us there.) 4) Merchant mind sets have to shift, too. Most don't "get" that a Web site is way, way more valuable than a Yellow Pages offline add. We build a strong, convincing case for this on a site specifically for local businesses at localbiz.sitesell.com. People reach this from a page that categorizes the "small-small-business" space into 12 categories, find.sitesell.com. Well, guess which of the 12 categories on find.sitesell.com has both the lowest interest level (i.e., lowest % visited from find.sitesell.com) and the lowest CR? Yup... localbiz.sitesell.com. We've even converted this into a professional looking booklet and our affiliates distribute them through local print shops and other places small businesses go (i.e., we're taking the mountain to Mohammed), with some success, actually, but less than we had hoped for. While webmasters ARE catching on and bringing SBI! to local businesses, the bottom line of all this?... It's going to be a long slog before local search is the El Dorado everyone seems to think. There ARE many strong, compelling reasons for local businesses to have a Web site (and by the way, 2/3 of businesses with 10 or less employees still do NOT have a site), and search results is one of them. And the delivery of new business through Web-based local-search results will, given enough time, be one of the best reasons. So folks should get established now, but right now... local search is "not ready for prime time." All the best, Ken Evoy, President SiteSell.com http://webmaster.sitesell.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: David Yancey Subject: Local search Adam, thanks for the help in spreading the word about www.vivante.com and our efforts to find a rational online listing solution for smaller and locally-focused businesses! We are proud that we were first, way back last May, to introduce an engine that can present integrated web page descriptions on the same page with local business descriptions. But who was first is not the important thing here. What is important is that Google and Yahoo have finally begun to recognize the needs of webmasters and site owners who typically draw 80% or more of their customers from people within 50 miles. The reasons the search leaders have to move in this direction are compelling: 1 For every dollar spent by local businesses on paid-search in 2004, there will be at least *twenty* dollars spent by those same folks on yellow page ads -- not to mention as much again on local radio and newspaper ads which are essentially intended to *do the same thing as a search or yellow page listing*. You want to see where the search industry is going? Just follow the money. 2 Put it in terms of potential customers: in North America alone, there are perhaps fifteen million businesses and professional services that need to reach prospects online. Globally, the numbers are at least twenty-five million. But today, less than 350,000 are actually using Google's, Overture, FindWhat, or similar online paid search services. 3 Very quickly, affluent consumers and biz owners are learning to use the web for locally-oriented searches, *in preference to the big fat yellow book sitting right there on their bookshelf*. Google / Yahooverture / MSN / AOL and the small fry search sites can either adapt to this "finding demand" now, or risk losing these valuable eyeballs to the online versions of the Yellow Pages. For sure, the market opportunity is there, and the big companies will slug it out to grab it. And, as Adam points out, the big Yellow Pages guys are not about to simply hand over their current dominant share of 25-plus *billion* dollars in revenues to Google and Yahoo and Mr. Gates. But what does this mean for LED readers who own websites? The problem the search engines have is how to make online search effective for local listings. For a half dozen major reasons, they cannot simply use their famous "web crawlers" to try and guess from a page's content whether the site relates to a specific geo target. The biggest reason? Well, the majority of these local services still do not have a website! So LED readers will find that both the big boys have chosen to rely essentially on Yellow Page listings for their "local services" content. They also will be relying on the local sales forces of the print publishers to sell online search listings. This means that, for your site to be reflected with any degree of accuracy in the search results pages, you will need to be paying substantial dollars *first* to one, possibly more than one, Yellow Pages companies. It means you are going to be dealing with a sales channel that does not understand online marketing. It means the content of your "local" online listing may be restricted to the info in your phone listing -- hardly the way to use online marketing! This approach to "local search" is going to make the real cost to reach local prospects much larger than most biz owners presently realize. It will get even more costly as the Yellow Pages people learn how to apply the infamous "auction model" for keyword bidding to telephone listings. This costly "solution" will invite more cost-effective competition, especially for the smaller businesses who cannot pay for premium Yellow Page listings with an AdWords "kicker" or whatever final shape the search engines' services take. We saw this coming, and built www.vivante.com to give website owners a choice. I am sure there will be others, too, as it sinks in how huge this unserved part of the market will be three or five years from now. David Yancey "Web searching *your* way" http://www.vivante.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Jenny Halasz Subject: Stand alones > I notice that doorway pages are greatly frowned on > by the search engines... are multiple domains pointed > to your site considered to be "doorway pages"? - A.Brantley, LED 1768 Multiple domains pointed to your site will be a problem if they don't redirect. A common misconception is that if the domains all resolve to the same information on the server, they're not considered duplicate sites. This is incorrect. If domain abc.com loads and displays the same content as 123.com, the search engines will consider it duplicate content. The only safe, search engine accepted way to have multiple domains pointing to the same content is to use one domain (like abc.com) and use 301 redirects on all of the other domains that point to abc.com. Jenny Halasz www.keywordranking.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Tom Anson Subject: Stand alones Hi LED-ers. I agree with Beth Earle that this is a must-read. Thanks Adam, and all, for this great forum. Now, with reference to Beth Earle's comments [issue 1768] about stand-alone, optimized sites: What she is describing are not "doorway pages", but mini-sites. The two are radically different. The fact that these sites have multiple pages, and provide "a bunch of useful information that anyone looking for this client's products or services would be glad to have" sets these mini-sites apart from those pesky pages that offer nothing but a place for searchers to land. Would it be better to include such pages in the corporate web site? Yes, most likely. But are these doorway pages? No. I see no problem with this practice, and I doubt that search engines would, either. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Marty R. Milette Subject: DMOZ > ... my question is now how do I get DMOZ to correct > their listing when there is no editor for a category? - Joanne Cannell, LED 1768 I suspect that DMOZ is going to kill itself off. I've submitted numerous excellent sites for both myself, and for my clients -- and out of the numerous submissions have only ONCE received a single, standard rejection notice. (Without any explanations.) Editors have too much to do, yet seem extremely reluctant to have anyone new come on board to help administer even the smallest of sub-categories. I know there are many excellent editors, but these seem to be the exception rather than the rule. There seems to be a general 'holier than thou' or 'elitist' attitude, that makes further submissions pointless. Despite attempting to contact several editors directly, I have never once received a reply. I've also applied several times to become a category editor, but even those applications are ignored. IMHO the only possible benefit of DMOZ is increased PR in Google -- little else. There must be a better alternative? Marty R. Milette ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Phil Weaver Subject: My affiliates outdoing me Hello LED'ers. I read the digest every day but this is my first post. This has got me baffled. I was just checking my rankings in Yahoo. Wanted to make sure things were still good after the changes they've been making. I found something very strange. The # 4 listing in Yahoo under the search term "belt buckle knife" (without the qoutes, #6 with them) for my site www.belt-buckle-knife.com is an affiliate link to my site. It comes up #3 under the term "belt buckle knives". How in the world would an affiliate link get into their search results. Did this person submit the link through inktomi as if it was his site? How can I find if it's elsewhere on the web? I'm not really sure if this is a bad thing or not. He is my highest paid affiliate and now I see why. I'd hate to lose my #1 position to an affiliate of mine. Please help. Any advice here is greatly appreciated. Phil Weaver www.belt-buckle-knife.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Marty R. Milette Subject: Trademark Use Does anyone have a good reference on how a trademark may, or may not be used on a web site? For example, if I put up a page on my web site that mentions "ABCD" which is a trademark of "Company A" -- is the mere fact that my page MENTIONS their trade mark enough grounds for them to force the removal of the page? This kind of flies in the face of common sense - for example, if Microsoft could force the removal of all pages on the web that have negative comments about any of their products and mention them by name -- the web would be pretty darn sparse! :) To clarify the situation, the pages in question did not pretend to be, or represent the company or its products in question in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the page had no real 'content' whatsoever. Just a simple template-driven page with the trademarked abreviation in the title, and in the H1 tag. Nothing more. Anyone have any good guidelines? Thanks, Marty R. Milette http://www.custom-toolbars.com marty [at] milette.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Great minds think alike." - Anon. |
