I’m talking about the SEOMoz Industry Survey.

What The Survey is Not

This survey is not to be confused with the even more important SEOmoz Ranking Factors survey (which I had the honor of contributing to last year) that digs deep into the “how and where” of how search engines might work.

No matter how accurately participants answer the dozens of questions, no matter how carefully and considerately the Moz team convert that data into pie charts and bar charts and pretty infographs, it really isn’t ever going to be more than a platform for consensus on a narrow aspect of who we are, how we’re doing and how we go about our work.

Why The Survey Is Vital

There’s enough tidbits of value in this survey if you pay attention.  Both from a pulse of the industry perspective as well as a “how we might be able to do our jobs better” perspective.

Even with the limitations such a platform has, this biennial crowd-sourced knowledge dump is by far, the single most valuable tool we in the industry have to help gauge the general state of where we as an industry are, and where opportunities might exist for efficiency and productivity, and insights and answers that we may have not given enough weight to on our own.

As long as we recognize its limitations, just as we have a responsibility to do when analyzing ANY data in our industry, regardless of source, this one resource has the capacity to bring crowd-sourced based clarity to what is likely a laundry list of questions that many if not most of us have regarding at least some aspect of the work we do.

Over Dramatization Or Spot on Opinion

In 2012, Click2Rank is growing dramatically. We’re in a multi-phase hiring frenzy.  And we’ve increased our budget for outsourced vendor support services from a mere $30,000 a year to a quarter of a million dollars for the coming 12 month cycle. And that’s JUST for outsourced support services!

For some of you, the work you do may not involve millions of dollars of potential revenue increases for your employer or clients.  Maybe it’s only thousands.  Yet even then, wouldn’t you rather go to sleep at night knowing the way you do your work, and the things you focus on are the best possible?  Is it not enough that  you’ve made a commitment to your employer or client to provide the best possible service?

Its because of that perspective that as far as I’m concerned, since I give 110% of my passion for excellence, even the narrow focus of this survey is going to help me move ever closer toward that excellence in my work.

How We Do Our Jobs

One of the things I love about this survey is it opens my mind when I go about my work of deciding what tools, resources and solutions might help my team become more efficient, more productive and more focused.  A few years back, I was adamantly opposed to tools for automating my audit work, for example.  It was my belief that tools are imperfect, and no tool can pick up on the often subtle patterns that my  trained eye can see when looking at raw data.

When I got enough input from enough people in the industry that they were using various tools, with great success, I opened my mind.  And now, I can’t even begin to comprehend how I was able to be truly efficient without the tools I rely upon every day of my working life.

That I also now have an entire team relying on my guidance, my direction, and my recommendations, having a crowdsourced data point is even more helpful in my decision making process.

Perfect In Its Imperfection

Even though many people who take the survey are quite likely to be beginner or intermediate marketers, even though many who are seasoned will, themselves, be off-base in their own way of doing things,  the shear volume of data collected is itself at least a partial buffer from too much “questionable” or “shaky” data from causing survey results to invalidate the data’s usefulness.

How can I make such a claim?  How can I not take the position that if too many people provide inaccurate, half-valid responses, the survey is then useless, or at worst, harmful to our work?

We’re an industry of professionals.  We’re not, generally speaking, a bunch clueless hacks stumbling in the dark.  Enough people within our industry get enough results in the “positive” column, that collectively, we must be doing something right.

The Testing FailSafe

Just like any other input we choose to take in our research and learning of our collective craft, if you truly are professional, if you truly do implement best practices in your work as a rule, you’ll take what you think the survey is telling you, and you’ll test it on your own.  You’ll be responsible in your testing, and you’ll do so cautiously and consciously. Just like you do with more direct ranking and conversion based method choices.

Testing Begins With Assumption

It’s dangerous to make assumptions.  No. Actually it’s not.  Instead, it’s dangerous to make assumptions, then blindly make decisions that directly have the potential to negatively impact people’s lives.  In this case, it’s mostly related to efficiency and methodology.  Yet those alone can cause an agency or department to totally go sideways or off the rails.  So testing even in this scenario, is vital to the health of the work you do.

Assumptions Require Input

In order to make assumptions, we need input.  Either from our own past experience, or that of others.  The more input we get, is not necessarily better.  Too much input from too many people can, in fact, cause our senses to be overwhelmed.  So how then, is the Moz survey a good thing?

Consensus Based Input

The golden key to making use of mass volumes of data in our assumption making process is where that mass volume can be consolidated into digestible chunks.  In a form we can understand and make sense of without feeling overwhelmed.  And last I checked, no other organization in our industry goes to the lengths gone to by the Moz team, to both gather this data and then in turn, present it in such digestible chunks, let alone on such a massive scale.

Help Make Our Industry Better

If you totally think I am high as a kite in my logic here, that’s great.  Continue going about your work however you choose that you believe works for you.  If, on the other hand, you agree with my thinking, I highly encourage you, if you haven’t already, to take the time to participate in the Survey.  Those of us who rely on it to help formulate our assumptions (as one of many data points, thank you very much), will thank you for it…

Industry Consensus – Why I Encourage you To Take the SEOMoz Survey is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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I first signed up for their service when I was working for a non-profit in Kansas City. It was a free service to look at some data and compare ourselves against some others in the area. Since our site wasn’t any bigger than twenty pages there wasn’t a huge pull to go for the pro services. So now I’ve had a chance to see what I was missing, on to the review!

What is SEM Rush?

SEM Rush is a part of the SEO Quake team, whom all SEOs know make a killer addon to FireFox. SEM Rush is a tool that analyzes site(s) ranking, traffic, keywords, adwords, trends and much more. These guys also partner with some well-known SEO/SEM groups and resources such as The SEO Dojo, Raven Tools and SEO Book.com.

What They Provide:

                Data

The free version isn’t all that bad, because well, it’s free. It allows you to run 10 reports a day and gather some pretty decent intel, which is good if you’re a small business doing it yourself or have someone else on staff. One thing I really like is when it shows the cut off:

(free version)

Why you ask? Because the numbers shown are the same numbers you’ll see when you go pro. You get to see the keywords and pages that are ranking. It’s a little taste of what you’ll get when you upgrade your account. This is really nice when trying to get your boss/client to spring for the pro account. Instead of seeing a typical “must upgrade to view stats”, they’ll see partial numbers and data that will spark their interest. And when the upgrade happens, the rest of the data is visible (and you get to run 3,000 reports):

(pro version)

                The SERPs

If you notice the little notepad image to the right of the results you’ll get to see a little snap shot of the current search results for that keyphrase. It’s nice to see a quick shot of what the SERPs look like for a keyterm your site is being found by without having to go run individual queries. It should be noted though that these “snap shots” are the current Google cache for that search and it may not reflect what you’re looking at. This function to view the SERPs is also available when you’re checking out the Ad Words competition.

                PPC Spying

You want to check out the ads your competition is using? SEM Rush’s nifty Ad Words integration not only allows you to see how much the competition is spending on ads, including the cost per click, but also lets you see what ads they are using. I don’t spend a great deal of my time in PPC, but if I did I could see myself really using this function a lot.

                Traffic/Trend Comparison

The traffic/trend comparison is a great visual tool to not only compare how sites stack up side by side but also allows you to see what kind of hit the competition takes when Google rolls out algorithm changes. You’re able to sort the data by search engine traffic, search engine traffic price, number of ads, ad traffic and ad traffic price. That’s really good insight to see where the competition is focusing their time and money at.

<shinyobject>when you drag your mouse along the graph the pie chart will automatically reflect the data to match the current position of the mouse</shinyobject>

                Keyword Research

The keyword research is similar to the Google Adwords Keyword tool in that it will show you the word you searched for and relates results but will add some more info. You’ll also see the top twenty organic competitors ranking for that term as well as the top twenty ad buyers for that term. It’ll also show you the trending traffic created from those phrases in addition to the estimated cost of clicks for them as well. And like with all of the data that can be generated in SEM Rush, it can be exported.

                Exporting/Embedding The Reports

Anytime I can export data to look at it further offline, I’m all for it. Sure, SEM Rush gives you the ability to view the data in charts and graphs online but what if you want to customize your own in Excel? In addition to being able to export the results, SEM Rush will provide you with an embed code. I can’t imagine using this to put on a client site, but for some reason if you wanted to show off the traffic your clients were getting they have a way to let you do that.

My Final Thoughts

The biggest difference between the free and pro account is the amount of information seen and the number of reports one can run a day. If you’re a small business that can get by on 10 reports a day then a free account may be all you need, but realize the amount of data you get is limited. If you’re a freelancer or agency with multiple clients in competitive niches then the pro account may be the way to go for you.

The Cons

So at this point you may be thinking okay Josh, what faults are there with it? The biggest thing I’m not a huge fan of is that it won’t show any data unless your site is ranking in the top twenty for the phrase you’re targeting. Which only means you have to keeping working at it to get in the top twenty, but you can compare the data of those already there. For instance, a client has just started in the travel niche (very competitive). When I run a report in SEM Rush I see all of the brand terms they are ranking for and a few long tail results, but no results for the bigger more competitive terms they are targeting.

I also found a few instances of the report generator showing more and less reports that I had run. Since I never used all 3,000 of the reports I could run I wasn’t able to figure out if the report counter was accurate. This leads me to my next point.

The jump from 10 reports a day and to 3,000 is a HUGE leap. Yeah you get more data, but what if you’re a small business that doesn’t need to run 3,000 reports a day much less 3,000 reports a month? When I worked for that non-profit in Kansas City I and used SEM Rush to collect data it would have been nice to have the pro account, had there been a smaller package available it would’ve been an easier sell (my budget was $0). It would be nice if they had a package focused at small businesses not to mention if their data allowed for more than just the top twenty results.

I don’t have a problem with the data they are providing. After all Raven Tools uses SEM Rush’s API for their own services. So if those guys trust the data provided, why wouldn’t you? You can read this review again or even read the tutorials SEM Rush has on their site, but you won’t know what you think unless you try it yourself. SEM Rush is providing a *free two week trial of the pro account (reports only up to 500 a day), so at the very least check out SEM Rush and leave your thoughts in the comments below.

*This is an affiliate link; if you wish to proceed without the affiliate referral just remove the affiliate snippet (/?ref=553995584) at the end of the link.

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I also spoke on how to not only inoculate yourself from the major updates at Google, but to go beyond that. To generate significant organic search traffic through other means.

Rather than embedding my deck over on SlideShare or DocStoc, I prefer to keep all my content local.  No disrespect to those fine services. Just that my content is my content, ya know?  And here I can present it to you without ads, or without having to pay them a fee to have no ads.

But I get to do even more.  I get to provide you not only the slides I used, but the notes I spoke from.  That’s a significant bonus to you because a slide deck by itself is pretty boring right? And I can even skip the intro slides and the “why I’m so great, you should respect what I’m saying” slide

So here, for your viewing pleasure, I present my Google Survivor tips presentation.

• Topic: Google Survivor Tips
• Slides: 24
• Presentation Length: 18 Minutes

When I was gathering this data, I reviewed sites that I’d coordinated the SEO on and sites that came to me after, so it’s a pretty good sampling of data.  Most interesting is the fact that while these sites had over 7 million pages indexed at Google, the sites NOT inoculated only had a tiny fraction of their pages indexed at Bing – I’ll touch on reasons for that in this presentation.

There are 2 kinds of SEO

And I’m not talking about “the hat which shall remain nameless”

I’m talking about Myopic SEO and Sustainable SEO.

SEO that’s got tunnel vision, and SEO that sees the bigger picture.

Here’s an example of a few sites that came to me after Panda.

Note how in two of these visitor trending snapshots, the sites took a significant hit from Google’s May Day update, and were subsequently hammered during the Panda cycle.

Personally, when I studied the May Day update and Caffeine, I saw the writing on the wall – and in fact, I spent several months inoculating my own client sites against what I knew was coming this year.  (Note – my client sites were NOT negatively impacted, however all indications from that update were that Google was turning up the heat in a big enough way that it meant bigger changes were coming.

Here’s trending charts from three of my pre-Panda clients.

The first launched shortly before last year’s May Day update and has been consistently performing ever since.

The middle one is for a seasonal site, with ups and downs reflecting those trends.

All three are great examples of sites properly optimized with Sustainable SEO.

So Lets Look at Myopic SEO

Several common factors  come up every time I see a site that was given the “Myopic” SEO treatment.  Either by a consultant or agency, or a site owner who “thinks” they know what SEO is.

Sometimes a site  has only a couple of these problems.  Most of the time, they’ve got nearly all of them.

What is Sustainable SEO?

Tight Topical Focus.  Clearly Seeded on and off site

And it considers User Experience.    Not YOU – You’re not the user.

And Diversity in what you do.  Or you create False Patterns

Patterns are everything.   Pandas  LOVE False Patterns

Here’s a great example of Myopic SEO

This is a case of Internal Link Poisoning.

Look at all them links.  Everywhere.  About Everything.

No Topical Focus on this page. The “main content area” is a tiny box of text surrounded by a sea of confusion.

And Link Poisoning causes Algorithms to Vomit.

Here’s a main category page from that same site.

The page was sliced in half for this presentation because it’s too long for one slide.

Note the “main content area” in that tiny box on the left (upper) portion of the page.

Again, it’s lost in a sea of links going everywhere imaginable on the site.

They’re confusing to users.

They overwhelm the senses.  Of Users And Search Algorithms.

Here’s another site that’s a great example of Myopic SEO.  Again, this is one page, split in two.

There’s just too much going on here that has nothing to do with the topical focus of this specific page.

And no effort went into getting comments, user generated content, on this one (or the majority of content on the site).

All the other unrelated stuff causes user and search confusion.

Here’s that same page cleaned up.

Much more main content.

Heavily Promoted User Generated Content.

Fewer Ads.

Which bring MORE clicks now.

Now it’s a Happy Page.

This is a page on a professional services site.  Note how there are NO Ads.

If you have a professional services site, there is no legitimate reason to have ads.

Best practices Structure all around

Section Specific Sub-Navigation is really important

Breadcrumbs confirm topical relationships

Lots of High Quality Content

Myopic SEO Inbound Links have ugly patterns

Here’s one where it’s mostly BRAND related anchors.

And the keyword anchors are really weak choices.

Which means you’re missing a lot of people who don’t know your brand

And this profile doesn’t match Google on-site understanding of what you’re site’s about.

It’s a disconnect.  Myopic.

This link profile is no better.

Look at those Ratios of Links to Root Domains.

High Link to Root Ratios are  BAD SEO.

Too many links coming from individual domains

If there’s a lot of them, it’s an indication you may be buying links.

Sustainable SEO requires better link profiles.

More diversity of brand, keyword and generic anchor text.

And much tighter Link to Root Ratios.

You can have SOME high ratios – for example – I blog.  A lot.  So I’ve got a lot of links from Search Engine Journal for example.

Every bio in every one of those articles, plus some in-content links – those are natural, so it’s valid to have a high ratio there.

Except it shouldn’t be the majority of your inbound link profile.

Because that’s not natural.

Sustainable SEO is so important to understand.

Get it and you’ll  not only ride the Google  Roller Coaster

You’ll get more visits.

Better Visits.

And more visits from other places

And more sales.

So Remember- only MYOPIC SEO is stuck in the Google Mud.

SUSTAINABLE SEO sees a bigger world out there.

With lots of opportunity from places appropriate to your market.

Maybe there’s location specific opportunities.

Or industry specific.  They’re out there.

Are you an adventurer, or are you a marketing wallflower?

Here’s some stats on sites I audited, comparing the quality of their SEO.

ODD, Isn’t ?

Myopic SEO caused sites to have  between 10% & 16% traffic from other search.

Oh Look.

Sustainable SEO brings between 20% and 49% of its traffic from other places

And that’s not cannibalized from Google.

It’s IN ADDITION TO Google.

If you’ve been stuck in the mud with Myopic SEO, you’d be surprised to know that Bing has a preference for inbound links that come from other sites Bing thinks are authoritative.  Which means that it’s good to take a look so that at least some of your inbound links come from sites that are actually ranking in Bing, not just Google.

Remember that the sites I studied had only 10% of their pages indexed in Bing.  – Actually some sites have MORE pages indexed in Bing than Google.  So don’t assume.

And Bing has a more difficult time discovering content without your help.

So take the time to submit those sitemap.xml files to Bing.  You’ll be glad you did.

And when you have strong site architecture, Bing is better able to index more pages as well.

Bing’s not just looking for “Likes” in social .  They want to see engagement.

Engagement = authority.

Let’s Talk About the importance of a variety of Anchor Phrases.

Look how easy it is to get many more pages indexed in Bing .

Again, this is just MY experience, and what I’ve found in my own audits.

It’s pretty consistent though.

So be sure to get more diversity in your anchor text.

And point it to the right content on your site.

Laser focus where those inbound links point to for topical relevance when you can.

And spread the anchor text love!

With Sustainable SEO, you need to be forward thinking.

It’s critical.  Because the search engines are only going to continue to care more about how they determine searcher intent AND Site owner intent.

People who are stuck in the mud see one thing or hear about one technique

And think

OMG  This Is The Answer To My Prayers….

Or they encourage bad business decisions.

Like too many ads on a page.

Sustainable SEO Requires Thinking Outside The Box

And planting a listening device in Matt’s Office.

And hires psychics to figure what Google and Bing will do next.

Seriously though – it’s like how I was able to realize that May Day and Caffeine were warning signs that Panda was coming.

Through the rest of this year and beyond, Google and bing are going to work to get these signals even more highly tuned.

So pay attention to these considerations when you’re doing SEO or auditing a site’s current optimization.

Sitting on the myopic couch has got to  end.

Your aunt Sally’s getting worried.

Because  search engines suck at evaluating content   And relationships

But Schema.org changes the paradigm.

Search engines are finally admitting in a HUGE way, they need our help.

So don’t wait til 2012

Get with the Schema Program this year.

And you’ll be  a winner in 2012.

AFTER CONFERENCE NOTE

I created this last slide the day I learned about Schema.  A week before the presentation.  I tweeted about Schema, referring to it as a paradigm shift. And I drilled it as a factor during that night’s #SEOChat.

And before flying up to Seattle, I wrote an SEJ article focused specifically on my prediction that Schema.org markup would be a ranking factor in 2012, and that article went live on the first day of the conference.

The next morning, before my presentation, Stefan Weitz, Head of Search at Microsoft, talked about Schema.  And how it’s going to help them understand site owner intent more.

Which means they’ll be able to better match user intent to site content intent.

And that means it WILL be a ranking factor.

At the end of his keynote, I went up to him and we talked about it.

And we were in complete agreement that it’s amazing there are so many people who don’t yet accept Schema is both here to stay AND that it’s going to be a ranking factor.

Maybe it won’t be.  Maybe it will fail to get wide implementation.  Maybe lightening will strike the same place six times.

You never know.

Me, I’m going with it.

Slide Deck & Notes from My SMX Advanced Google Survivor Preso is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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I watched the event live, and tweeted snippets from the event, so I figured I’d post them here for those of you who weren’t able to watch, or weren’t aware of the event…

I’m showing them here in sequence, rather than in the typical reverse sequence that comes from live-tweeting…

________________________________________________

Ok here we go – Google’s about to announce this RFID chips for web sites thing… http://www.youtube.com/google

Cool: submit questions about the RFID Chips for web sites to insidesearch2011@google.com

Amit is saying “even with Schema, we need more help understanding sites. RFID for web sites will help”

“With RFID for web sites, Google will understand a site’s intent instantly…”

“We agreed to Schema.org with Microsoft and Yahoo, knowing we had the upper hand with RFID for web sites.”

“Think of Schema.org as the first child, RFID for web sites as the second child of search” #Quote #AmitSinghal #InsideSearch

“Its important that you get that first organic result right. RFID for web sites will help us do that.” #Quote #AmitSinghal #InsideSearch

“At Google speed is the 3rd pillar of quality search. RFID for web sites will resolve that.” #Quote #AmitSinghal #InsideSearch

“With RFID for web sites, you’ll have a great user experience on mobile” #Quote #InsideSearch

Cool. RFID for web sites – instantly translates a site for you based on your native language! #InsideSearch

“Mobile speech has grown by a factor of six in a year. RFID for web sites lets you interface faster.” #InsideSearch

“The new Speach.Interface aspect of RFID for web sites will ensure mobile search is more accurate” #InsideSearch

“230 billion words worth of data from queries. RFID for web sites processes that instantly. ” #InsideSearch

“Mobile has opened a world of possibilities. RFID for web sites will let you explore that world.” #InsideSearch

“With RFID for Web Sites, we can predict what you will want, even better” #Quote #Google #InsideSearch

“RFID for web sites – you won’t have to decide which SERP to choose – we’ll do it for you” #QUote #AmitSinghal #Google

“Google Instant Pages – RFID for web sites lets you see 500 pages at once” #InsideSearch

“Get to the next page before you click your mouse, thanks to RFID for web sites” #Quote #AmitSinghal #InsideSearch

“With RFID for web sites, you’ll be able to learn Spanish in a day” #InsideSearch

Lots of cheering in the live feed audience as they’re describing how RFID for Web sites helps students cheat on tests..

“RFID for web sites combines Dragon Naturally Speaking with lazy ass people’s mind models” #InsideSearch

“RFID for web sites – the next gen Google Goggles. ” they’re calling it “Google Gurgles” #InsideSearch

“RFID for web sites will let you take a grainy stolen logo and get a crisp version” #InsideSearch

Search by voice, search by image, Google Gurgles – all thanks to RFID for web sites… #InsideSearch

Google Instant + RFID for web sites – “Faster than instant” #Quote #AmitSinghal #Google #InsideSearch

“RFID for web sites – flip web pages faster than changing channels on your TV” #Quote #AmitSinghal #InsideSearch

“Sure, there will be antitrust lawsuits because of RFID for web sites. We’ve got the money to fight it” #InsideSearch

“We understand RFID for web sites will kill Adobe’s business model. Too bad.” #Quote #Google #InsideSearch

“At Google, we don’t want to alienate SEOs with this, so only SEOs will have RFID for web sites licenses” #InsideSearch

“RFID for web sites will initially be priced at $35,000 per site.” #Google #InsideSearch

___________________________________

Okay, there you have it.  A complete recap of the most important things Google communicate at today’s event.

*disclaimer – if you actually believe they said any of this stuff, you may want to lighten up a bit.  Because RFID for web sites is really something only I could come up with… really.

Alan

Google Announces New Features – Live Tweeting Recap is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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Manu Sporny, W3C’s Chair of the RDFa group, read this article and provides a great response in the comment thread, to which I responded. So be sure to read the comments after reading the article.

________________________________________________

In an ideal world of “everything is free”, crowd-sourcing, and W3C standards, all major decisions that affect the masses should only be decided by consensus of the masses.  That’s a concept that, in regard to the evolution of the web, needs to be seen for what it is.  Fantasy. It’s not reality by any stretch of the imagination.

Schema.org was long overdue, because there were too many competing choices and the search engines desperately need help in the process of identifying quality content.  And by collaborating on the Schema model, the big three unilaterally set the stage for a major step toward that cleansing, in a way that traditional “open” standards could never do.

Tonal Disclaimer

This is one of my harshest articles in a while.  Some of you may get really upset at Alan going so dark on you.  Well, let’s just say that this is an article I believe would not have as much of an impact if I sugar coated it.  It’s an opportunity for some of you to pause and open your eyes.  And if you do, I also believe you’re going to thank me for it afterward.

Giddy With Laughter

When Schema was first going viral on Twitter, I jumped over there to see what the big 3 came up with.  And within a few minutes, it was crystal clear to me that we’re seeing a paradigm shift in the search industry unfold before our eyes.  As imperfect as this first iteration is, it solves so many problems that I was giddy with laughter.

I immediately sent a directive to my agency client’s dev teams – Schema.org – read it, learn it, implement it.  No arguments. No delay.

I then tweeted the urgency and the opportunity before the search community that night, during #SEOChat.  And then wrote an article for Search Engine Journal entitled “Anticipating SEO in 2012 – Competitive Advantage“.

In that article, which went live while I was up at SMX Advanced,  I communicated how I saw a situation where people who get with the Schema program are going to have a competitive advantage.  Because, in my opinion (at the time it was JUST an opinion – today I KNOW it will be), Schema is going to be a ranking factor for organic search.

Searcher Intent, By Itself, Is Half A Pie

Up at SMX Advanced this past week, I was on the Google Survivor Tips Panel.  And as part of my prep for that panel, I’d read Eric Enge’s interview of Stefan Weitz, Director of search at Microsoft.  In that article, Stefan described how they’re moving from reading words on pages as if they’re nouns, to a time in the not-distant future where they’re going to start reading them and interpreting them as though they’re verbs.

What that’s about is the need to better understand the intent of the site owner in what they’re communicating their product or service offerings are about.  Which, if successful, will allow the engines to better match that data with searcher intent.

And from that interview, it was clear to me already that people are going to have to do a better job at being crystal clear on the intent of their site’s message. Which I already knew. Because most of the sites I audit turn out to do a TERRIBLE job of communicating their highly refined intent.

Because it’s usually not very refined at all.  And with a plethora of coding methods out there, and no agreement on standardized solutions, sites struggle to communicate this.

Along Comes Schema.org – The Other Half Of The Intent Pie

During that initial review I did of Schema, Stefan’s words came back to me in the blink of an eye – here, in this newly launched system, was a very powerful way for sites to better communicate their intent! All the way down to the granular level, if you execute properly.  And not just in headers and off-page stuff.  We’re talking the beef of any web site – the core content.

Confirmation – It’s Going To Be A Ranking Factor

On the last day of SMX, the morning keynote (just before my session), featured Stefan Weitz.  He talked about Schema.org, and how it’s going to help the search engines understand intent so much more.  And when it came time for taking questions from the audience, I asked if my seeing the connection between his interview and Schema had been accurate, he said yes – absolutely.

And when asked if Schema was a ranking factor, he said not initially.  But it will.

After the keynote, I went up and spoke to Stefan briefly – and we shared a laugh about how obvious it should be that it’s going to be a factor and that some people just don’t get it.  Which was a bonus for me, because, as you can see from the image above, it was the very last slide in my presentation deck.  And having that slide perfectly matched by the morning keynote speaker just rocked my world

Angry Birds Flapping Their Wings Frantically – Fighting The Prevailing Winds

While some people got it, as I did, right away – like Aaron Bradley over at SEO Skeptic, many in our community just found another reason to rant. With the general tone this time being “wait and see” or “we already have microformats, RDFa, etc. – why do we need search engines dictating to us?” – and that’s the kicker.  It’s a typical reaction to change that’s so significant, so massive, that it’s unsettling.

And of course, since it’s something that the big 3 came out with, it’s another reason to hate on the big 3.  Evildoers, that they are. “What about the little guy, who’s going to be at an even bigger disadvantage?” “Oh why can’t we just do what we want?” “Why should I have to change?” “The only reason they’re doing it is to scrape our content”…

Birds of a Feather…

And as soon as this whole thing started really spreading, developers far and wide started screaming.  Not all – some saw the blessing that this really is. Yet many cried foul.  Insulted.  Put off.  Angry that they’re not going to be allowed to continue doing whatever the heck they please anymore.

Myopic Thinking Rears Its Ugly Head

In my presentation at SMX Advanced, I spent the majority of my time (a very generous 18 minutes, thank you very much Danny Sullivan!), I showed comparisons of two types of SEO.

And I wasn’t referring to “the hat that shall remain nameless”.

I was talking about Myopic SEO and Sustainable SEO.

To me, Myopic SEO is stuck in the mud.  It’s limited in its vision.  It’s a major hindrance to sites gaining maximum recognition for their content. Which means it falls way short when seen through the eyes of the search algorithms.

You remember those.  The processes by which search engines determine whether your content is the most relevant for a specific search.

Well, anyhow- some people are all up in arms, railing against Schema.org, wanting to “take back our web“.  Yes, that’s right. Manu Sporny, the Chair of the W3C group that created RDFa, wants to FIGHT BACK. Read his article.  Then come back.  But first, be sure to put down your coffee before reading his article,  else you spit coffee all over the place laughing.

Manu Sporny, I Feel Your Pain.

Look, I really understand why someone who spent years of his life championing one of several alternative markup solutions would be so upset.

RDFa was first proposed in 2004.  It took three years just to get to the first public working draft.

Another year to reach recommendation status.

That’s four years just to reach recommendation status!

As the Chair of the group, Manu probably has had more sleepless nights than many people experience in a lifetime.  What with all the bickering, and hemming and hawing, that’s inherent to the 20th Century methods required by W3C protocol, and of course, due to the fact that many people who participate in “open” standards have a hidden agenda, which gums up the process.

Then there’s archetypal reality in play – get ten code monkeys in a room, and you’ll get 14 “solutions” for a single problem. Throw a few Project Managers into the mix, a couple UX people, and some corporate spies forced to participate at the directive of their suit-and-tie employer, on the premise that “we have to have a say in this”…  Yeah – it becomes a long, slow, and completely bogged down process.

Except there’s a problem with RDFa.

it’s  just one of a variety of methodologies to come along over the years from the web community at large. And that is the bigger problem. Competing solutions, none of which reached, to this point, the status of “the only solution from a best practices perspective”.

“It’s Not My Problem” Syndrome

Over the years, as search has become exponentially more complex, from time to time, I’d hear someone say “it’s not my job – that’s Google’s responsibility.”  As if Google has the magical power to figure everything out, without our help.  Which is complete bullshit. For all the times we’ve heard “let google figure it out” (Even by Matt Cutts over and over), we all know search quality sucks for many topics. And it IS partially our responsibility.

Don’t believe me?

Why do you think Google invented the Canonical tag?  Or Sitemaps.org?  Why do you think they started encouraging the use of Breadcrumbs as a signal?  Or Microformats/microdata/RDFa in general?

Because they need our help.  #DUH

Sustainable SEO

In my presentation up in Seattle, I mentioned that Sustainable SEO is vital. It’s forward thinking.

Sustainable SEO anticipates, evolves.

And those of us who take the time to think like business owners, will have no problem understanding the importance of Schema.org or that it’s already here to stay.   It’s not one of those “wait and see” situations at all.

Welcome To The Business World

SO okay – they need our help.  Sue them.

While you’re suing them, I’ll be helping my clients push your site results even further down in the SERPs.  Because I understand that Schema.org is an answer to the search industry’s prayers.  And it’s an answer to site owners prayers.  Yeah – the people who pay all you developers and SEOs your salary, your hourly wage, your consulting fee.

That’s Right – Schema.org is a brilliant Godsend for business owners.  People without whom, you wouldn’t have a thriving and ubiquitous web, that now permeates every cell of your being 24x7x365.

It’s a Godsend because what amounts to a cumulative millions of hours of wasted search effort on the part of searchers is that much closer to being repurposed.  It’s a Godsend because more site owners are going to be able to rise to the top of search results.  Which will mean they’ll make more money.  And that money will partly go to pay their employees.  Who have families to feed.

It’s a Godsend to millions of Project Managers around the word, who won’t have to deal with bickering code monkeys when it comes to “which method do we choose”.

It’s a Godsend to me, because I’m going to work on a way to help developers automate as much of the implementation of filling in the data into Schema elements.  And that’s going to help me in the overall SEO consulting process because programmers who get it will love me for that.

And for ALL of these reasons, within the business realm, the big 3 took action that was long overdue.  And would still be years out if not for their unilateral decision.

But Open Standards Are Just Around The Corner

Yeah – that’s right Just recently, the W3C finally moved one step closer to reaching another standard.  Which, however, would not have stopped countless engineers from doing things their way anyhow.  Either by NOT implementing any micro-method at all, or by going with something other than the W3C standard.

How do I know this?  Look at the web today.  It’s a mess.  HTML 4 – yeah that competed against XHTML.  And still does.  Even as HTML 5 is rolling down the tracks.  And code validation in any of them still sucks for the vast majority of sites on the web.

So if, after sixteen years in this business, I have YET to see a single “standard” that’s come from the web dev community be handled properly, let alone reached critical mass as the single, consistent method of d0ing things, how the heck do you think you’re going to convince me that you can get it right this time?

Be Patient, You Say

Ha!  Be patient.  While the world moves forward, driven by the needs of the business world, you go ahead.  Keep that pipe dream alive.  In the mean time, the closer the big 3 can get to improving search quality, the sooner I can get back to playing some Madden NFL.

Sometimes Children Need To Be Told What To Do

When a business owner needs to get every competitive advantage they can in order to succeed, it’s that need that drives business decisions. And since many of us are already fully on board with the importance of Schema.org and how it solves so many problems (as imperfect as it is), you’re going to be very upset when you are fired by your boss/client when they hear you failed to get them higher up in search results because of your stubborn belief system.

But Its Too Complex

Some are saying it’s too complex.  To understand.  Or to implement.

That’s okay – you can start with the basics.  For now, they’ll only be using schema for display purposes – things like events, and recipe’s and business addresses and such.  And you can get an intro primer over at Authority Labs – where Dawn Wentzell did a great job in her “Implementing Schema.org Microdata” article.

And keep an eye open as more info comes out on rolling out microdata.  Because believe me, it’s coming.

The Bogus Call to Arms Against Schema.org is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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This advanced SEO panel, at what many people consider the single most important search conference in the U.S., will include Micah Fisher-Kirshner, SEO Manager, Become, Inc, myself and Mark Munroe, Director Search Audience, MerchantCircle.  And it’ll be moderated by Danny Sullivan himself, so I’m not only going to have to have a killer presentation, I’m even going to have to be on my best behavior – no tweet-rants allowed!

Topics I’ll Cover

During my presentation, using real world examples, topics I’ll cover that ensure success at Google, Bing and other key referrer sources include:

• Proper Information Architecture
• Content Organization
• Topical Separation
• Off-Site UGC (User Generated Content)
• Optimizing for Other Search Sources

Real World Data, Principles & Concepts

I’ll show real world data of what works, what doesn’t and why.  And I’ll help you understand why all of this boils down to the critical need to understand your user’s mind model.

When I’m done, you’ll have a much better grasp of the best way to not only optimize your current site, but how to anticipate where Google is moving down the road, so you can take proactive action BEFORE the next May Day / Vince  / Panda update on the horizon…

So if you’re attending SMX Advanced, be sure to attend this invaluable panel.  And if you’re not, be sure to tell @SusanEsparza she has to live-blog it for you!

Let’s Network!

And if you are attending, and we haven’t met yet, be sure to come by and introduce yourself, or better yet, contact me ASAP and let me know you want to join us for #EpicDinner – June 7th, at the four star Waterfront Seafood Grill at Pier 70, a stone’s throw from the conference!

Come Hear Me Speak on the Google Survival Tips Panel @ SMX Advanced is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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SEOMoz recently conducted their latest “ranking factor” survey and I had the pleasure to participate – can’t wait to see the results.  But one of the concepts in the survey asked whether social sentiment would be a factor in search results in 2011, and if so, how much.  And I need to admit I blew it.  Big time.

To be clear, I DO believe social sentiment is already a minor factor, and anticipate it will become more of a factor in 2011.  I did NOT, however, anticipate how MUCH of a factor it would become in 2011.  Sure, Google took manual action against the guy who bullied customers for the intentional purpose of getting social mentions, with the belief he had that even bad mentions would boost his rankings.  So Google knocked his rip-off site right out of the index.

And yes, they started offering the ability for people to manually block sites in their own search results not long before the Panda/Farmer update.  And in that update, they compared the sites they hammered to that manual crowd-sourced list and found an 84% match – where 84% of the sites they deemed trashy in the Panda update matched those people had manually flagged.

Still, at that point, I figured there’s a huge flaw in the concept of Google being able to get a wide enough swath of real world users (outside the Geeks who drink the Google Kool-Aid) to be able to use that data to manipulate their SERPs.  I mean – can we really trust those Kool-Aid drinkers to voice the sentiment of main-stream society?  No frakkin way!

Then there’s the whole Facebook “Like” factor.  That’s clearly a much stronger basis for gauging user sentiment right?   So I figure that would eventually become a signal if it isn’t already.

Except there’s still the reality that so many businesses don’t have, use, or even comprehend how to get a Facebook Like button on their sites.  So in my little world view, it’s still not enough to provide a fair playing ground in the SERPs when it comes to social sentiment as a factor strong enough or reliable enough for Google to actually use it as a very strong signal.

Well today is my Twitter stream is all abuzz over the new Google “+1″ button.  Danny Sullivan wrote up a good article covering the new service detailing the functionality more than I do here.  I’m more focused on the ramifications of social sentiment in general in 2011…

And THIS is by far the biggest confirmation that Google’s taking another step toward social sentiment as a way to manipulate their SERPs.

While it’s still listed as “experimental”, it IS already available if you’re signed into your Google account.  And according to the service’s description

Your +1′s are public. They can appear in Google search results, on ads, and sites across the web.

Wow.  Really?  Kind of like how Facebook is now showing ads with YOUR face on them, where if you “like” something, they stick your “endorsement” right there with the ad.  To manipulate your friends into clicking on those ads.

This may be experimental for now, but since your results are public, Google’s not going to wait a few months in a private beta test loop to exploit this and manipulate the SERPs.

Sure, it’s just going to show those +1 “endorsements”, for now.  So it’s not like they’re going to increase the rankings of those sites, is it?  Probably not for now.  But yes – this is a wake up call for sure that they’re working feverishly on crowdsourcing the whole “manual manipulation” of the SERPs.

So hey SEO community – WAKE UP – Social Sentiment is here to stay.  Maybe not in its current form.  Yet whatever form it evolves (or devolves) into, it’s here.  Now.

The Writing Was On The Wall

Just to clarify even more – the writing was on the wall back when Google rolled out Place Page results in the main SERPs – right away it was evident that Local listings with more reviews were getting a boost in their placement.  And not long after that, Google started a marketing push to get people to provide reviews of Local businesses right within Google, as a way to take ownership of what had been reliance on Yelp, CitySearch and other rating services.  Now though, it’s gone to a new level…

Google Plus 1 – Social Sentiment as an SEO Factor is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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This week Lisa Barone added her take on the topic – approaching it by providing tips for finding a legitimate SEO.   Dave Harry let it be known that he’d been contacted by THE WSJ on the Overstock issue in light of that site being slapped in the SERPs.  Dave did a good job pointing out what might be a partial cause to the big O’s subsequent deflation.

Then yesterday, a discussion thread was started over on Sphinn entitled “Is it possible for us to educate the media about SEO?”

The Fraternity Mentality

Finally, today, I awoke to read an article by Dave over at my beloved Search Engine Journal entitled “Would You Report A Competitor To Google?“.

In that article, he examines both sides of the issue – do or don’t…  And brings up the “Fight Club” case:

The first school we are going to look at is; Fight Club. And the first rule of fight club? (all together now) Don’t talk about fight club. These folks believe that SEOs are a fraternity and while we may disagree at times, we should never ‘rat’ each other out to ‘the man’.

I have to look at the outing other SEOs as a double edged sword. While it may help you or your clients to achieve a higher ranking, it’s also doing a disservice to the reputation of SEOs everywhere. Many people already think of us as slimy cheaters so why we need to add to that reputation? For a better ranking? To look better to our employers or clients?

OMG outing your competitors is doing a disservice to the industry?

Wake Up Suzy, Wake Up

Hell yeah, I report abuse within our industry.  I do so rarely, and only when something is, in my own opinion, severe and egregious.  I don’t, counter to Tim’s belief system, do so for better ranking, or to look better to my clients or anyone.  I do so because I choose to want to contribute to the betterment of our industry.

Self Police Or Government Regulation – You Choose

Michelle Robbins pointed out in the Sphinn discussion that:

there’s a whole lot of shady going on in SEO and we all know it.  Just like in every other industry. And the industries that fare the best are those that self-police.  This business is not unlike the advertising industry pre-regulation.  Key to note there is that they are a regulated industry now – whole other topic – but something that seems to get lost on the cult of SEO.

I agree with Michelle completely.  As I mentioned in a comment over on that Sphinn discussion, we’re either going to learn to police our own or the gov will step in.  It’s inevitable as billions upon billions of dollars are gained or lost based on our actions.

Even WITH regulation, consider what goes on in this country.  AIG, the mortgage industry meltdown, Enron, Madoff, Blackwater and the tobacco titans are all examples of severe abuse of the system even with regulation.

Yet without government regulation, and without a truly strong self-policing mechanism, every industry was even worse.  Unbridled greed led to all sorts of even more problems severely harmful to society.  Sweatshops.  Child labor.  Massive dumping of pollutants directly into the drinking supply…

The Real Causes Of Our Rep Problems

While I treasure the aspects of our industry that come from a “we’re in this together” perspective, hiding behind that shared drunken stupor mentality is harming our industry.

It’s 3rd grade phrases like “tattle tale” and gang-mentality phrases like “ratting out” that contributes to our problems.

It’s those very same blinded-by-greed companies that contributes to our problems.

It’s companies claiming ethics then using asshat tactics on a massive scale that contributes to our problems.

It’s people claiming “everybody does it so don’t be naive” who rationalize and justify unethical behavior that contributes to our problems.

No, reporting a flagrant, severe, and highly abusive issue is the ONLY right thing to do.  It sets the proper example for others.  It fosters an atmosphere of fairness in business.

It might just even ensure we don’t have to face completely unrealistic, expensive and probably even ridiculous government regulation.

But They’ll Come After Me

If you’re afraid that the bad guys will come after you for reporting abuse, then you need to learn how to implement best practices.  You need to monitor client sites for signs of 3rd party abuse.  You need to know how to counter that.  And if you don’t know how to do all of those, please don’t put yourself or your company out there in the first place.  Or at least hook up with people who DO know how to do these things.

Or make a big disclaimer on your offerings that you’re not really an expert, you don’t really know how to help companies in this league.

THAT is professionalism.  Keeping quiet out of fear is not.

Save The Cheerleader, Save The World

Google makes too much money off of crappy AdSense sites, and too much money selling AdWords to the asshats to take severe steps against the asshats.  They’re just not going to do it in a massive way in short order.  They have to do what they can through incremental soft steps.  Which allows the asshats to adapt readily.  Cat and mouse, needing each other. So don’t count of Google to be the hero.  They’re not going to save us from ourselves.  Or from government regulation.

And unless we take responsibility in a much bigger way, the cheerleader’s going to die.  And then we’re really screwed.

The SEO Industry needs to grow a pair is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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Unfortunately I am buried in client work this morning and won’t be able to fully digest her response, which includes the official JCPenney statement on the whole NYT article and Matt Cutts’ manual action against JCP in the organic SERPs, until later tonight. But rather than holding off on providing their response until I can go through it and provide my own insights, I felt it would be appropriate to publish it here for you, my readers.  This was also the recommendation I got from two trusted friends in the industry.

Here then, is Ms. Brossarts’ email in full – for now I’ll leave it to you to digest and comment.  Note too that I am only publishing this after confirming with Ms. Brossart that she was okay with my publishing…
_______________________________________________________________
Alan -

Thank you for your email.  Below is JCP’s statement regarding yesterday’s NYTimes story.  Additionally, after reading your blog thread, I thought you’d like to know that jcp.com is a closed site.  Google bots currently don’t crawl our site.  Our natural search vendor manages a mirror site for us that redirects to jcp.com (hence the redirect links that you discussed on your blog).  We are planning to open jcp.com to Google bots with the launch of our new platform.

I hope this helps clarify.

Please let me know if you have other questions.

Best,
Darcie Brossart
VP, Corporate communications
______________________________________________________________
JCP’s statement:

The characterization of JCPenney in the New York Times article is misleading and unwarranted. In particular, JCPenney was in no way involved in the posting of the links discussed in the article. We did not authorize them and we were not aware that they had been posted.  To be clear, we do not tolerate violations of our policies regarding natural search, which reflect Google’s guidelines.

We are one of the nation’s largest retailers, serving half of America’s families. Our website jcp.com was one of the first and largest of its kind and we are committed to best practices in marketing and selling online. Once we learned of these unauthorized web links, we began an immediate investigation into how and by whom those links were posted. We have also terminated our relationship with our natural search marketing firm.

The New York Times failed miserably in neglecting to disclose that it hired a competitor to the search firm working with us and used that competitor firm as the primary source, as well as in its description of our business:

The reason JCPenney outperformed the competition during the holiday season is attributable to having the right merchandise, great price points, a compelling holiday marketing campaign and the best department store customer service.  It’s as simple as that.  It is naïve for the New York Times to suggest that these low-quality web links drove our business.

JCPenney is one of the top 20 brand marketers in the country.  Because JCPenney was one of the first retailers to maximize search engine optimization, we have had a very robust natural and paid search program in place for years.  Couple this with the fact that we are one of America’s largest retailers, and it is clear why JCPenney had held some to the top search rankings in dozens of key word searches for years – long before these unauthorized links appeared.

Our natural search program has never included paid web links, like those described in the article.  It is against our policy, and the fact is, we don’t need to them to build our Google rankings.  We have millions of links from our web partnerships and programs that already gave us link popularity.  These included links from our 1.4 million Facebook fans, who clicked from Facebook to jcp.com; social media and fashion bloggers; our holiday partnerships with Yahoo!, Microsoft, Time Warner, Hearst.  Our links on these sites during the holidays had editorially relevant content and pointed to our product pages.  These links and ones like them are what drove our relevancy rankings on Google, not the unauthorized, low quality links that the New York Times reported on.

We have seen no spike in jcp.com sales from natural search at any time, including during the holiday period in question.

We have no record of ever having received a violation notification from Google before last week when the unauthorized links came to our attention.  If we had, we would have worked quickly to remedy the situation, as we are doing now. Obviously, we are disappointed that Google has reduced our rankings.  Nonetheless, we will continue to work through the appropriate channels to regain our high natural search positions.

JCPenney is one of the most financially sound retailers in the country, so to insinuate that the closing of five underperforming stores, and the discontinuation of some legacy operations that don’t drive meaningful growth for our Company was somehow connected to this issue, is contrary to the facts and a disservice to New York Times readers.

_________________________________________________________
So, Search Marketing Wisdom readers, what’s your take on things now?

Was it wrong for the NYT to hire “a competitor to the search firm working with us and used that competitor firm as the primary source” ?  Should they have disclosed this?

Was it wrong for Google to not notify JCP, as they state?

What about their claim that they have 1.4 million links from Facebook fans?  That has to be a mistaken concept and I’ve asked Ms. Brossart for clarification, which I’ll add when I can properly add my own insights to this…


_________________________________________________________

UPDATE 2/14/2011

I was initially confused by the “these included links from our 1.4 million Facebook fans…”  I interpreted that to mean “we have 1.4 million facebook fans who all created a link to our site from theirs – 1.4 million links…  And I went WTF?  – So I contacted Darcie and she clarified:

Facebook was just one of our examples.  We only listed the number of fans to highlight that it is a large fan following, and not meant to count the 1.4 million fans as separate links.

We have a very robust program, and while we are not going to disclose how many links we have, it is fair to say that it is several million.

Now at this moment I have no way of verifying exactly how many links they’ve got, let alone which are legitimate.  OSE reports in the tens of thousands.  But the site’s ghosted and too many domain addresses exist for me to bother figuring it out.  But I just wanted to update this post with these additional pieces of info.

And thanks to everyone who commented here – lots of questions, lots of opinions.  I think this whole thing leaves more questions than answers, and probably hasn’t swayed too many people one way or the other.

JCPenney Responds to NYT and Google is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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Yesterday I wrote an email to Darcie Brossart, the official spokesperson who was referred to in the original NYT article on the JCPenney link fiasco, inviting her to read my article.  She sent me an email this morning in response, with a bit of insight into the JCP SEO currently in place as well as the official full length JCPenney response to the NYT article.  It’s a lengthy one so I’ll need to carefully review it before I publish it here, as I would like to be able to address  that response properly.  Stay tuned…

____________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE #2 2/14/2011

I’ve gotten an email back from Ms. Brossart, giving me permission to publish her initial email to me.  Today’s a hectic day with clients so I’ll do my best to find the time to carefully read that email and provide it here for you along with my insights as soon as possible…

____________________________________________________________________________

I love when web sites get caught paying for links and end up feeling the Google wrath.  JC Penney’s the latest example.  Yet it’s happened before, and it will surely happen again.  But there’s a much bigger problem every time this comes up that nobody ever talks about.  The fact that most of these sites have a much bigger problem than paid links.  Their on-site organic SEO is either very weak, or nonexistent altogether.  And believe me, that’s an EPIC problem…

THE POPULAR VERSION OF THE PROBLEM

If you were paying attention today, you either saw the tweets about the manual slap Matt Cutts laid on JC Penney after the New York Times began an investigative article on the matter.  Or you came across Vanessa Fox’s article on the topic or perhaps you read the forum thread over at Webmaster World.

All the buzz is focused in on the issue of paid links, the fact that while they’re not illegal, they do violate Google’s guidelines, and all the usual noise specific to paid links.

What I haven’t seen out there yet is anything about the very scary notion that in their response to the NYT inquiry, JC Penney’s spokesperson discounted the problem based on the notion that they only get seven percent of their online visits from organic search.  According to the article, Darcie Brossart, JC Penney’s spokesperson stated:

Just 7 percent of JCPenney.com’s traffic comes from clicks on organic search results, she wrote. A far bigger source of profits this holiday season, she stated, came from partnerships with companies like Yahoo and Time Warner, from new mobile applications and from in-store kiosks

AN OH. MY. GOD. RED FLAG MOMENT

IF that is a correct statement, JC Penney has an EPIC failure in place as far as their SEO is concerned.  I don’t care how big or small your site is – if you are only getting single digit percentage visits from organic search, all the paid links in the world are still failing to achieve the ultimate desire to profit from search engine listings.

Now, that may just be a red herring figure, used purely to deflect criticism, or it could be corporate arrogance pointing toward a complete lack of understanding in the potential value of organic SEO.  We probably won’t ever know.  And that’s okay.  What it did for  me however, was immediately cause me to have one of those “WTF” red flag shiny object moments…

JC PENNEY’S BIGGER PROBLEM

As soon as that shiny object caught my attention, I went to the JC Penney site.  And in under three minutes, I observed at least a dozen MAJOR problems.  I’ll outline just a few here, because I don’t give away my expertise for free anymore.  But let’s take a look at just a few issues.

MASSIVE DUPLICATE CONTENT CONFLICT

www.JCPenney.com redirects to http://www.jcpenney.com/jcp/default.aspx .  (I won’t even bother detailing why THIS is a problem. It’s a rookie SEO issue).  What I will say is that once you spend any time on the site, all of a sudden you get redirected to one of several JCP servers.  In my particular review, I was redirected to www4.JCPenney.com/jcp/default.aspx.

Exactly how many WWW servers JCP has, I don’t know at this point.  That alone was enough to tell me there’s a massive duplicate triple quadruple content problem.  Such a 1996 issue, it blows my mind.

URL STRUCTURE

Let’s examine the Women’s Skirt’s page. Google has communicated that they are fully capable of processing dynamic URLS.  That’s a very dangerous concept to fall for.  Having clean URLS is a fundamental requirement as a signal to search engines that “this page is relevant to these keywords”.  Clean URLs are also now known to be very helpful to User Experience.  I won’t include a full URL example here, because they’re ridiculously long, and pure code-monkey.  The kind of URLs I used to generate back in 1999 when I was building ecommerce systems from scratch and passing all my parameter variable IDs in the URL.

PAGE TITLES

On that same page, the Title is:

JCPenney : women : skirts

Attention world – the above title is almost worthless from an SEO perspective.  First, placing JCPenney at the front of every URL might be ideal from a CMO’s perspective.  However it has no business being at the beginning of the title on very high value category pages.  That’s invaluable SEO real estate.  At the very least, a properly optimized URL might instead be:

Women Skirts | Womens Skirts | JCPenney

Or for you hyphenation fanatics, just replace the pipe symbol with a hyphen.

God forbid you should actually attempt to do that though. Because it would give you three exact match phrases (women skirts, skirts womens, and womens skirts). And apparently the people providing SEO services (either the recently fired company or their predecessor perhaps), or someone in corporate, decided that the current page Title structure is “ideal”.  God bless their hearts…

EVEN MORE DUPLICATE CONTENT PROBLEMS

While we’re on this page, note how they’ve actually got a breadcrumb navigation implemented.  Well good for them, they got something right.  But actually, they didn’t.  Even the breadcrumbs are borked.  Because the URL used for the Skirts page we’re on is actually DIFFERENT than the URL I ended up at .  Not from a www4 issue, but because the URL I ended up at has an extra parameter stuck on the end of it. Probably for click tracking.

And there’s no canonical functionality going on, which would at least potentially mitigate this problem.

WHERE’S THE CONTENT BEEF

Let’s look at the top level category Window Treatments.

Let’s not even harp on the fact that this page’s title is simply:

JCPenney : Window

[headdesk]

Uh, excuse me, where’s the CONTENT?

That’s right – there’s not one single bit of actual HTML readable content on one of the most important pages on the site.  Because, like many retailers, their print media graphic designers are probably in charge of site design.  So excuse me while I then ask, even if you get PROPER page titles, and human readable keyword seeded URLs, and you fix your quintuple content issues, how is a search engine supposed to know that this page is highly relevant to a search for window treatments, if there’s no well crafted content describing the wonderful variety of window treatment products you offer?

LETS BE CLEAR – ON-SITE SEO MATTERS

IF, in fact, as I stated at the beginning of this article, JCP is only getting 7% of their traffic from organic search, they’re missing a massive opportunity.  No matter how many phrases they’re found for from paid links.  Every retailer I’ve ever dealt with that faced a similar situation (lacking on-site best practices), has seen phenomenal traffic growth from exponentially more long tail terms after they cleaned their on-site act up.

And if, after JCP somehow finds a way to clean up the current paid link mess, they get back in Matt’s good graces, they end up on the bottom of the 1st page of Google, with proper on-site SEO, JCP might even jump to the top few results.  Or even the top organic result.

But they are very likely going to need a LOT of work.  And that would require the buy-in from corporate.  So maybe somebody needs to let corporate know what REAL SEO is all about.

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UPDATE #3 2/14/2011

Here’s the official response from JCPenney as provided to me in an email directly from Darcie Brossart, JCP’s VP, Corporate Communications.

JC Penney has a bigger problem than paid links is a post from: Search Marketing Wisdom All content copyright protected - all rights reserved.

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