Part of the Google organic algorithm involves what has been called Random Surfer Theory. It is the unstructured nature a person uses the web to find things. A click here and a click there, follow a text link, try a banner ad, do a search... the connections between sites is tenuous and haphazard.
Where did it come from? Math and in particular graphs.
Throw in a little of this and a little Erdos Numbers.... and eventually you get a feel for it.
A person - Orion - who's opinion I value and who I have seen give a panel session to thousands at SES over a cell phone feed through the room's sound system - with his Spanish accent - and just a very small number left the room through his discussion of advanced search theory - details it.
Orion aka Dr Garcia, in an interview with Rand Fishkin over at SEOMoz, said: " By 1995, I heard about something called “search engines” and “web crawlers”. I immediately realized that the Web is a dynamical system. Many processes on information flow, retrieval and web surfing respond to equations of the same form to those modeling random walk, diffusion and markovian processes. For instance, in DLA we talk about “sticking probabilities” and the “probability that a random walker visit a site of a growing cluster”, In “Web terms” we talk about the probability that a random surfer will visit a site part of a web graph. However, let’s keep in mind that this graph is not static but is constantly growing.
Another analogy, a random walker moving through a self-similar DLA structure and a web surfer moving through a self-similar link structure are similar scenarios. The structure can affect the behavior of the walker and the walker can affect the growth of the structure. Depending on conditions, a system can exhibit different degrees of surfer-surfer, surfer-structure and structure-structure interactions so the walker no longer is a pure random or pure deterministic walker. Certainly these are crude analogies."
It is a little complicated when it is attempted to be mapped out. Basically it implies that web users do not follow very structured lines to get where they want to go.
If you overuse repeated anchor text, use the same landing page for the text links, buy links that archive and end up being thousands all in the same spot on a page ad using the same words.... you violate Random Surfer Theory...
Or as Shakespeare wrote: Oh what "an untangled web" we weave when first we practice to deceive.... well he should have!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
Where Was Will Smith This July 4 When Aliens Took Over HP
Okay I want to know where Will Smith was this July 4. He is the king of Independence Day movie releases and I did not see him in Transformers.
Well Will I have a story line for you. Unbeknown to the world, Hewlett Packard was taken over by aliens both extraterrestrial and non-US residential on July 4th. How do I know this? A problem with a computer allowed me to see that it had happened and when.
I bought a laptop for my daughter late August 2006 and the fan had broken recently causing the system to cut off after a few minutes use. No big deal it is a HP Compaq and they have a one year warranty.
So I track down the customer service number and give them a call. The person who answered my call had a heavy Indian accent and after a few repeated questions and answers had an response for me that tweaked me to the invasion.
Apparently my warranty ran out July 4th. This was a generic date as I did not have my proof of purchase handy... but that suggests the laptops mine was shipped with were delivered July 4th... not too many shipping companies working in the US on Independence Day.
Had to be aliens, right. So Will lets grab some planes or tanks and get to HP headquarters fast. Who knows what viruses they are loading onto the computers...
Now if that is not the case I can only think the standard response is to tell anyone calling that their warranty ran out two days prior to their call... nothing like adding a little to the frustration of the people in the US if you live in India - as my sarcastic helper Joy (a guy whose parents had a sense of humor and may have contributed to his attitude) told me.
I got the proof of purchase after a quick call to PC Richards - two minutes and it was faxed to me. But they were local and rely on customer satisifcation. I was on hold and in conversation for well over 25 minutes with HP.
Outsourcing is part of a global economy, I realize that. But you have lost me ever buying another HP product for my home or my business. Guess the aliens may have disregarded the computers and just sucked up the company's soul.....
Well Will I have a story line for you. Unbeknown to the world, Hewlett Packard was taken over by aliens both extraterrestrial and non-US residential on July 4th. How do I know this? A problem with a computer allowed me to see that it had happened and when.
I bought a laptop for my daughter late August 2006 and the fan had broken recently causing the system to cut off after a few minutes use. No big deal it is a HP Compaq and they have a one year warranty.
So I track down the customer service number and give them a call. The person who answered my call had a heavy Indian accent and after a few repeated questions and answers had an response for me that tweaked me to the invasion.
Apparently my warranty ran out July 4th. This was a generic date as I did not have my proof of purchase handy... but that suggests the laptops mine was shipped with were delivered July 4th... not too many shipping companies working in the US on Independence Day.
Had to be aliens, right. So Will lets grab some planes or tanks and get to HP headquarters fast. Who knows what viruses they are loading onto the computers...
Now if that is not the case I can only think the standard response is to tell anyone calling that their warranty ran out two days prior to their call... nothing like adding a little to the frustration of the people in the US if you live in India - as my sarcastic helper Joy (a guy whose parents had a sense of humor and may have contributed to his attitude) told me.
I got the proof of purchase after a quick call to PC Richards - two minutes and it was faxed to me. But they were local and rely on customer satisifcation. I was on hold and in conversation for well over 25 minutes with HP.
Outsourcing is part of a global economy, I realize that. But you have lost me ever buying another HP product for my home or my business. Guess the aliens may have disregarded the computers and just sucked up the company's soul.....
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Are The Big Three Search Engines Xenophobic
I was writing a thread post at Search Engine Watch about how Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have decided having any social event at the Latin SES in Miami is not worth the money, when I started to see a pattern.
I really think these engines are very xenophobic. Okay they have opened some other languages and countries to their mix, but they do not get any where near the attention that the US traffic does.
True, no other country spends as much online - but that is for the moment. The same could be said about the US only a few years ago. Back prior to 2000 the main flow of money on the web was in the porn industry. But buying anything else - by 'real' people - was not a trusted process, many people did not have credit cards and the debit card had not been invented.
The current state of things in most other countries is the same as back then in the US. In South America vendors are starting to add e commerce options for their businesses online. People are starting to get access to debit cards and are willing to buy stuff online. Now as salaries increase and access to the web becomes more prevalent, this swing in the buying power of non-US internet users will be very noticable.
China is a great example. Baidu and Sina have been the front runners and Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are in there trying to make partnership deals.
In Japan, Yahoo does not even own Yahoo Japan - that is part of Soft Bank. Yahoo rules in Japan.... just not the real Yahoo.
Meanwhile, Germany and France have started developing their own search engines... guess it is up to Brazil and one of the Spanish-speaking countries in South America to do the same. The big three are xenophobes... would love to know if Larry or Sergey , the Yahoo boys, or even Bill - a 2007 recipient of the Order of the Aztec Eagle condecoration from the Mexican President - have illegal workers doing their lawns or washing?
Hopefully someone with a deeper insight into the development of population groups and the preferred languages of future internet users will start developing better multilingual search tools and grab the attention of the internet marketing people who know the value of multilingual marketing already.
We are waiting for the rest of the industry to catch up. I attend the Miami SES for this reason.... I want to stay in front of the curve.
As any surfer will tell you that is where the best rides are.
I really think these engines are very xenophobic. Okay they have opened some other languages and countries to their mix, but they do not get any where near the attention that the US traffic does.
True, no other country spends as much online - but that is for the moment. The same could be said about the US only a few years ago. Back prior to 2000 the main flow of money on the web was in the porn industry. But buying anything else - by 'real' people - was not a trusted process, many people did not have credit cards and the debit card had not been invented.
The current state of things in most other countries is the same as back then in the US. In South America vendors are starting to add e commerce options for their businesses online. People are starting to get access to debit cards and are willing to buy stuff online. Now as salaries increase and access to the web becomes more prevalent, this swing in the buying power of non-US internet users will be very noticable.
China is a great example. Baidu and Sina have been the front runners and Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are in there trying to make partnership deals.
In Japan, Yahoo does not even own Yahoo Japan - that is part of Soft Bank. Yahoo rules in Japan.... just not the real Yahoo.
Meanwhile, Germany and France have started developing their own search engines... guess it is up to Brazil and one of the Spanish-speaking countries in South America to do the same. The big three are xenophobes... would love to know if Larry or Sergey , the Yahoo boys, or even Bill - a 2007 recipient of the Order of the Aztec Eagle condecoration from the Mexican President - have illegal workers doing their lawns or washing?
Hopefully someone with a deeper insight into the development of population groups and the preferred languages of future internet users will start developing better multilingual search tools and grab the attention of the internet marketing people who know the value of multilingual marketing already.
We are waiting for the rest of the industry to catch up. I attend the Miami SES for this reason.... I want to stay in front of the curve.
As any surfer will tell you that is where the best rides are.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Google's Handy MultiLingual Search Tool
I discovered this little gem while doing some research for my panel presentations for SES Miami in just over a week. This translation tool will be very helpful in some cases. But it also allows the trap many multilingual marketers seem to fall into, translating words from one langauge that may not really be the words used by the other language to describe the same topic.
Successful multilingual marketing takes a little more than direct translations. Now if they could combine this with a keyword suggestion tool so people could see the other possible ways of saying a phrase, then we would be able to do searches for these other terms and possibly find what keywords the locals are using to attract customers.
The Spanish market as I mentioned in the previous post is one to get involved in now. So I would recommend joining us in Miami to get some great insights.
Successful multilingual marketing takes a little more than direct translations. Now if they could combine this with a keyword suggestion tool so people could see the other possible ways of saying a phrase, then we would be able to do searches for these other terms and possibly find what keywords the locals are using to attract customers.
The Spanish market as I mentioned in the previous post is one to get involved in now. So I would recommend joining us in Miami to get some great insights.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
SES Miami: Catch The Latin Heat
Amid all the competition in the search engine conference industry right now, many people are overlooking the growing value in Latin America.
The economies of the countries have stabilized. The use of the web has grown rapidly, as has the number of online buyers. Yet the push by the major engines into this space has been pretty lame.
Wake up Yahoo! and Microsoft it is far easier to compete in this market and grow into it. Don't give up the US market, just see beyond it.
Yahoo has the benefit of their purchase of Terespondo, but are slow to push the growth in the space.
Yahoo and Google will be exhibiting at SES Miami - Microsoft did not even think it worthwhile....
Guess the adTech event the following week is the play this year. Should be interesting to see who they have for the search portion... the press release says there are 120 speakers covering all areas of media.
Getting the people from the search engines as speakers is good when balanced by advertisers and agencies etc. - this does not seem to be the case at adTech, while SES provides an in depth look into the Latin search market as well as access to the people from South America who head many of the larger companies search programs.
It never ceases to amaze me when you see provincial behavior from companies that exist on the web, especially the search engines. No wonder you have the French and Germans building their own search engines....
Catch the heat baby. Join me in the debate about this at the bar of the Intercontinental June 17-19 (conference runs 18 and 19).
The economies of the countries have stabilized. The use of the web has grown rapidly, as has the number of online buyers. Yet the push by the major engines into this space has been pretty lame.
Wake up Yahoo! and Microsoft it is far easier to compete in this market and grow into it. Don't give up the US market, just see beyond it.
Yahoo has the benefit of their purchase of Terespondo, but are slow to push the growth in the space.
Yahoo and Google will be exhibiting at SES Miami - Microsoft did not even think it worthwhile....
Guess the adTech event the following week is the play this year. Should be interesting to see who they have for the search portion... the press release says there are 120 speakers covering all areas of media.
Getting the people from the search engines as speakers is good when balanced by advertisers and agencies etc. - this does not seem to be the case at adTech, while SES provides an in depth look into the Latin search market as well as access to the people from South America who head many of the larger companies search programs.
It never ceases to amaze me when you see provincial behavior from companies that exist on the web, especially the search engines. No wonder you have the French and Germans building their own search engines....
Catch the heat baby. Join me in the debate about this at the bar of the Intercontinental June 17-19 (conference runs 18 and 19).
SalesForce, Google Partnership Missing The Boat?
Okay they have been talking... hell for that matter I have been talking about this partnership for over a month.
Smart move on the part of SalesForce CEO Marc Benioff I originally thought - he sees the future of Google Analytics and wants to integrate with them to provide the offline to online conversion metric. The integration of Visual Sciences - formerly known as WebSideStory - with SalesForce was one of the reasons we chose it. We can pass the lead level info into our CRM and when it converts we can make informed decisions on our marketing spends.
But it also gives us the ability once we have that information to make our sales process more efficient by giving the more valuable leads to the right sales people.
The marriage of two major players in the on demand space was ideal.
I had heard SalesForce was launching a Content Management part some time later this year that would help their users sell the content or network it or do whatever they need with it.
Plug AdWords into this and you can see why Google was ready - but when does SalesForce get the big return? It comes by being the CRM part of Google Analytics... it was why I thought they were talking in the first place.
But as the press release states:
Smart move on the part of SalesForce CEO Marc Benioff I originally thought - he sees the future of Google Analytics and wants to integrate with them to provide the offline to online conversion metric. The integration of Visual Sciences - formerly known as WebSideStory - with SalesForce was one of the reasons we chose it. We can pass the lead level info into our CRM and when it converts we can make informed decisions on our marketing spends.
But it also gives us the ability once we have that information to make our sales process more efficient by giving the more valuable leads to the right sales people.
The marriage of two major players in the on demand space was ideal.
I had heard SalesForce was launching a Content Management part some time later this year that would help their users sell the content or network it or do whatever they need with it.
Plug AdWords into this and you can see why Google was ready - but when does SalesForce get the big return? It comes by being the CRM part of Google Analytics... it was why I thought they were talking in the first place.
But as the press release states:
Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, is a robust offering that combines the power of Salesforce on-demand CRM applications with the Google AdWords™ platform to achieve integrated sales and marketing success. This joint solution provides businesses of all sizes with the same tools used by larger enterprises to successfully attract and retain customers.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Rand Versus Shoe
Funny I know both of these guys and always knew they did not have the same business model. Guess they thought there was only one so the other must be doing the same thing.
If you have not seen this I am amazed you found my blog - as theirs get much more traffic.
But for a summary of the Rand versus Shoe debate those links will help.
Where do I stand... funny I think both of them will think I am on the other side.
Personally I think there is some form of benefit from any blog. Whether it is ego stroking (mine) or altruism (Rand's) or monetization (Shoe's), there is an ultimate motivator. I have ignored my personal blog because I have been doing work for Search Engine Watch. I figured I would get more exposure - combine that with I am too lazy to do the post it here and then reference it there stuff that many others are famous for...
Should every blog have a prominent disclosure text on the homepage? Sure why not... I guess we could make the About Us link the "About our blogging motives" link.
Must admit both parties have had a fair amount of traffic from this little crossfire. If I didn't know better I would almost think it was staged.... but while both would have thought about it, only one of them would have gone for it! (at least in the harsh light of day)
If only disputes about algorithms or PPC methodology received as much debate.
If you have not seen this I am amazed you found my blog - as theirs get much more traffic.
But for a summary of the Rand versus Shoe debate those links will help.
Where do I stand... funny I think both of them will think I am on the other side.
Personally I think there is some form of benefit from any blog. Whether it is ego stroking (mine) or altruism (Rand's) or monetization (Shoe's), there is an ultimate motivator. I have ignored my personal blog because I have been doing work for Search Engine Watch. I figured I would get more exposure - combine that with I am too lazy to do the post it here and then reference it there stuff that many others are famous for...
Should every blog have a prominent disclosure text on the homepage? Sure why not... I guess we could make the About Us link the "About our blogging motives" link.
Must admit both parties have had a fair amount of traffic from this little crossfire. If I didn't know better I would almost think it was staged.... but while both would have thought about it, only one of them would have gone for it! (at least in the harsh light of day)
If only disputes about algorithms or PPC methodology received as much debate.
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