Antezeta Web Marketing

SEO for a Blog - All roads lead to RomeCamp 2008

sean — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:18:22 +0000

One of the things that I really like about the Internet is that anyone who has a minimum of familiarity with a computer can communicate their ideas to a wide audience. Once upon a time the platform of choice was a personal site at geocities, clarence city or the like. In the meantime the blog [...]

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Social media measurement and an example, this SEO Blog

sean — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:19:59 +0000

Recently a friend asked me for some pointers on the measurement of social media, such as blogs. I have found that Jeremiah Owyang has a lot of interesting things to say on this topic, as exemplified by has article What should we measure and the document Tracking the Influence of Conversations: A...

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Improve search engine and keyword reporting in Google Analytics, a SEO strategy

sean — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:23:18 +0000

In three short years 1 Google Analytics has become an important tool for many companies looking to get more out of their presence on the web. Google Analytics’ wide range of website reports, from traffic sources to conversion rates, provide invaluable insight into a site’s business...

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List of over 550 search engines and sources of traffic attributable to web search

sean — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:22:52 +0000

The following is a list of search engines and significant sites incorporating a search engine, such as ISP portals, which provide site traffic attributable to web search. The list can be used to verify if your Web Analytics system recognizes all the sources of organic search traffic and keywords...

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Search engine detection in Microsoft adCenter Analytics

sean — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:27:18 +0000

Microsoft is the other main player, after Google Analytics, in the area of free Web Analytics tools for the analysis of browser centric web data. Microsoft’s adCenter Analytics is the successor to the former LiveSTATS thanks to Microsoft’s acquisition of DeepMetrix in April 20061. Why...

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Are directories still useful for SEO and in increasing web site traffic?

sean — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:15:18 +0000

An ongoing question in search engine optimization (SEO) projects regards which directories might be useful for increasing incoming traffic to a web site and as a means in obtaining better search engine visibility. The question arises due to the importance that was once attributed by search engines...

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Enhance your blog or website with Google’s Site Search. Measure the results in Google Analytics.

sean — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:47:07 +0000

You’ve done it. You’ve created a successful web site with compelling content. A loyal community of readers keeps coming back for more. SEO efforts have paid off too, with lots of traffic from Google, Yahoo!, MSN and minor search engines. Time to sit back with a fine Real Ale or a glass...

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Who’s using Google for their organic and paid search results?

sean — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:10:17 +0000

An important consideration for Google AdWords advertisers is to understand just where their contextual ads might appear. Google notes that AdWords ads can appear on the: Google search engine Partner search engines (e.g. Aol, Ask.com, Libero / Arianna, Virgilio / Alice) Google owned web content...

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Funny business searching for Milan-Rome flights in Google – AdSense Arbitrage at work.

sean — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:11:13 +0000

The traditional August break in Italy is a wonderful time to work on projects which linger on the back burner during the rest of the year. Last August led to the release of a free keyword selection guide (in Italian); this year’s focus is a Course on using the AdWords PPC paid search...

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Web Text Search is Hard. Image indexing is even harder. Just ask Cuil.

sean — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:49:56 +0000

A new search engine, Cuil, has launched, in an attempt to become the next Google. Cuil was founded by people with experience from Google, AltaVista and IBM – sufficient enough to get the mass media’s attention in the dog days of summer. Rather unfortunately Cuil decided to tout...

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Marketing the best of a bad situation: gracefully communicating downtime news on the web

sean — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:01:34 +0000

The other evening Camillo Di Tullio, a.k.a. Dr Who, asked me via IM if I was having problems accessing highly trafficked social media websites like Facebook or LinkedIn. In that particular moment, I wasn’t, but his question stuck a particular cord. We’ve seen many downtime issues with...

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Links and Algorithms behind Blog Statistics: BlogBabel reopens.

sean — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:03:13 +0000

I couldn’t help but notice the reopening of Italy’s primary blog classification service, BlogBabel. Just over a year ago I wrote about BlogBabel: “While it is worth keeping in mind that BlogBabel’s ranking is just one measure of the importance of a particular blog, Ludo...

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BLVD Status Analytics in free public beta test

sean — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:15:43 +0000

I found an interesting announcement over at 97thfloor.com of a new Web Analytics tool, BLVD Status. Two significant impediments have historically hindered the uptake of Web Analytics by businesses. The first has been cost. Professional Web Analytics systems have been fairly expensive, both in...

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Search engine Ask.com no longer crawling the web. Weakly powered by Google?

sean — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:49:05 +0000

Many search engine optimization professionals have long hoped that Ask.com, the scrappy search engine underdog, would give the big three (Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft) a run for their money. In July 2006, we saluted Ask.com by documenting their little known Ask.com API data interface....

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Are Italian publishers still diffident when it comes to Internet Book Search?

sean — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:37:14 +0000

This was the question posed to Santiago de la Mora, Google’s European Partnerships Lead, Books, at Editech 2008: Editoria e innovazione tecnologica, Milan, 27 June 2008. In the article that follows, I’ve attempted to paraphrase Santiago’s presentation of Google’s Book Search...

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Flash is still a problem for SEO (and the web) despite Google announcement

sean — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:21:58 +0000

I just discovered that someone on a Web Analytics discussion group misconstrued the recent Google announcement of better Flash search engine crawling support to mean it is now good to use Flash when developing web sites. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Google’s move is welcome...

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People, Internet and Enterprise Business, all without mentioning Google.

sean — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:52:43 +0000

Last Wednesday I had the fortune to attend a world class conference on social behavior and technology applied to medium and large sized businesses. Not in San Francisco. Not in Boston, where I worked for 4 years. Not in Milan, even. In Varese. Right, Varese, once known more for shoe production. The...

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Psst: Your Competition is ignoring Internet Search Marketing, are you?

sean — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:18:44 +0000

The inside scoop on how you can get a competitive advantage by including organic search engine visibility in your marketing mix. One of the primary goals of traditional advertising is to create demand for a product or service. An advertisement awakens latent demand by bringing attention to the...

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Search marketing is different: how to gain a competitive advantage by insuring a successful SEO project

sean — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:17:06 +0000

In a related article, I consider how Internet search marketing remains a niche focus for a few early adopters despite laser-like targeting and measurement abilities. As a relatively new media, search engine mechanics and user interaction with search engines remains a bit of a black box for many...

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Are you an accomplished woman vying for a place in President Obama’s Cabinet?

sean — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 08:41:44 +0000

As Barack Obama prepares his challenge against John McBush, one of his many challenges is to engage and motivate the many constituencies which supported the Hillary Clinton candidacy. It is unlikely that the white racist contingent will rally around Obama’s message of hope any time soon;...

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9 SEO Security Tips for Wordpress

sean — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:40:00 +0000

In theory, this is a marketing blog, focusing on search engine optimization, web analytics and other web marketing topics. So what does Wordpress security have to do with Google and SEO? Well one downside of the extended web ecosystem is that the same idiots who jump the queue in the supermarket...

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Remove Wordpress version information from your blog and feeds

sean — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:28:22 +0000

By announcing to the world the version of Wordpress you are running, you greatly simplify the work of a hacker. Peter Westwood’s post documents how to suppress output of the Wordpress version number in feeds and blog posts. I’ve packaged his code in a very rudimentary Wordpress plugin...

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Astra2Connect and Tooway close the Internet digital divide with satellite to home service, maybe.

sean — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:47:39 +0000

Regular readers of this blog be warned – this article is about the internet infrastructure needed to insure Internet users are online in the first place. We can perform all of the search engine optimization (SEO) we want, but if our target audience isn’t online due to lack of access,...

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Search engine optimization for websites in multiple languages

sean — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:09:15 +0000

A common issue facing companies and organizations with an international presence is how to deploy multilingual sites across one or more Internet domain(s). In other words, should one put all the sites on a .com or .org domain, perhaps taking advantage of directories on the web server to separate...

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Google Analytics’ Web Statistics Benchmarking Service

sean — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:29:06 +0000

Last summer I looked at the different web statistics available for benchmarking the competition. From a marketing point of view, the result wasn’t very good. Poor methodology and a lack of transparency mean that most publicly available web statistics are worse than useless: by providing a...

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State of the Net, Udine 2008

sean — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:11:49 +0000

So what is the state of the Internet in Italy in the year 2008? Armed with an ambitious, varied agenda spanning two days, speakers from Italy and abroad tried to answer this question during the conference STATEoftheNET, held February 8 and 9 in Udine. We didn’t need to wait long for an...

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Become my friend, at least on Facebook

sean — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:16:22 +0000

For a long time I’ve resisted the tempation to create a profile in Facebook – one can’t be everywhere, no? (Andrey Golub being the exception!) Certainly there aren’t a lack of places online to find business partners. However, I recently received an e-mail from an American...

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Social media to solar power: RomagnaCamp offered it all

sean — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 19:23:13 +0000

Fresh back from this weekend’s RomagnaCamp, I’m taking a brief break from a “posting hiatus” to report on the event. After a quick touristic visit to Ravenna on Friday, I caught the bus for Marina Romea. This turned out to be auspicious as I was able to met Giuseppe...

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Now there are 6 ways to keep website content out of search engines

sean — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:45:18 +0000

Several months ago a client inspired me to write a comprehensive guide to keeping website content out of search engines. Usually website owners are focused on the opposite side of search engine optimization, insuring web content is well indexed. Yet, as many can attest, search engines can be all...

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Are we still lying with statistics in the internet age?

sean — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:29:17 +0000

In the course of a search engine optimization project, I’m often asked during the competitor analysis phase why one website ranks highly in Alexa, while another ranks highly in an other statistics supplier’s top websites survey. As our two part article Web statistics for internet market...

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Google ever present in Desktop Search with release for Linux

sean — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 07:35:23 +0000

More than two years after Google launched its Google Desktop Search for Windows application, limited initial support for the Linux platform is available. Of the top three major search engines which offer desktop search software (Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft), Google is the first to try to win the...

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Brand Confusion with Trenitalia’s Website

sean — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:37:35 +0000

Marketing professionals know that brands are worth big money. A brand name and logo serve as an instant shorthand to convey a mental image of a product or service. Companies invest extensively when developing and launching a new brand name. Once launched, brand names are fiercely protected. Looking...

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Web Analytics Optimism in Italy

sean — Thu, 24 May 2007 07:40:43 +0000

Last November Luca Meyer organized the first Web Analytics Wednesday (WAW) in Milan, in conjunction with the IAB Forum interactive marketing event. All of six people were present to represent the Internet’s accountability side in Italy. A pitiful number when you consider the thousands of...

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Getting the most out of business oriented social networking services LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo and Neurona

sean — Sun, 20 May 2007 16:38:35 +0000

In just a few years, businesses oriented social networking websites have taken off. The industry leader, LinkedIn, counts more than 10 million members despite only being available in English. To take advantage of a professional social networking web service, a user completes a professional profile...

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Searching the World’s Information in Google’s Universal Search

sean — Thu, 17 May 2007 08:31:35 +0000

Over its short life span, Google has been diligently carrying out its stated mission of organizing the world’s information including web pages and documents, blogs, images, news, finance, videos, books, products & catalogs and local places. Each of these data types has had its own...

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Google rolling out much improved Google Analytics V2

sean — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:57:17 +0000

Google is in the process of releasing a significant update to the free web analytics tool it launched to wide acclaim in November 2005. Although we’ve appreciated the professional feature set in Google Analytics, especially given the cost, the user interface was cumbersome at best. As time...

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How do search engines, such as Google, handle JavaScript and CSS?

sean — Thu, 10 May 2007 15:52:15 +0000

A frequent Search Engine Optimization question is “how do search engines such as Google handle JavaScript and CSS?“ Historically, search engines processed web pages much like an old text video browser such as lynx. A search engine only “saw” what the simplest browser could...

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Harnessing the knowledge of the masses with Google

sean — Tue, 08 May 2007 16:15:20 +0000

One of the common problems of writing in a foreign language is that of using the right expressions in the right context. As an example, is the English expression child’s play, a simple task or act, gioco di ragazzi or gioco da ragazzi in Italian? While linguistic websites will undoubtedly...

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Keep out: an often overlooked part of Search Engine Optimization

sean — Sun, 06 May 2007 10:26:54 +0000

Rare is the web professional who doesn’t know that building a great website isn’t usually enough to guarantee its success. Sites have to be visible in search engines for the keywords and phrases web navigators are most likely to associate with the site’s content. An entire...

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Blog statistics with BlogBabel at ZenaCamp in Genoa, Italy

sean — Tue, 01 May 2007 12:59:48 +0000

Expats in Italy need to stay on top of professional and daily happenings locally while still engaging in the wider world. This task is made difficult by the vast quantity and quality of resources available in English (my native language), as exemplified by the BBC. Unfortunately, their Italian...

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