SES PR Train Wrecks Don't Address Search Engine Marketing

I attended my first session of the day at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose in order to learn more about bad PR as it relates to SEO. Oops, no search discussed here.

The session was titled, "Public Relations Train Wrecks in the Interactive Biz: Disaster Can Be Avoided!" I assumed we'd hear about how things like the Microsoft/Edelman PR Blooper. I figured it would address how search results can haunt a company like Walmart, that handles their PR badly. I thought it may be at least peripherally about how bad PR search results are persistent due to bloggers linking to results using the company name.

The session description says,

"Interactive marketers know that public relations and marketing are hopelessly intertwined. Yet many in the interactive space do not understand how to develop a successful relationship with key publishers. Don't just issue a release and hope for the best. Learn the difference between productive efficient contact and annoying drivel. This unprecedented and candid discussion with today's top interactive marketing editors will reveal train wrecks (no names please) and best practices for you.

I chose to attend this session thinking, since this is a search conference, that it would have to do with search. I guess I'm going to have to carefully read session descriptions to be sure they aren't talking about things that have little to do with search. Hmmm.

Rebecca Lieb of ClickZ, (sister site to SEW under Incisive Media ownership) and Brad Berens of Imedia Connection (I'm not sure whether to be embarrassed that I haven't heard of them) were the only panelists introduced by moderator Kevin Ryan (of Incisive media). The two panelists sounded as though their days are spent under a constant flurry of bad press releases, follow-up emails, and pitches from PR firms, followed by endless phone calls from annoying publicists. The session description might have been accurate, but what does this have to do with search?

Don't get me wrong and think that I'm suggesting that this wasn't a good presentation by some worthwhile panelists on an interesting topic - but I spent a good deal of my time waiting to hear the relevance to search. It never came.

Both Berens and Lieb strongly emphasized how important it is for PR representatives to "Know thy Editor" and to know the Audience of the publications they seek coverage from - that they not "waste" the time of editors (and publications) that have little to do with the topic being pitched to them.

Were Berens and Lieb told they were speaking at a search conference? Do they know the audience at SES is made up of SEO's and SEM's? "Know thy audience" might be suggested to speakers at search conferences. The session was sparsely attended, but if PR reps are lacking at a search conference - I hardly find that unexpected. Perhaps if that description were changed a bit to include a bit more SEARCH relevance, and the speakers covered a topic expected at a SEARCH conference - or even skewed this topic toward search topics, the attendance might increase just a bit.

Mike Valentine is an SEO Specialist offering occassional commentary on Search Engine Developments through his Reality SEO Blog and developed WebSite101 Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial in 1999 to help educate the little guy to the intricacies of online business.

Wikipedia SEO: Don't Spam - Contribute

Because Wikipedia entries routinely show up in the top 5 search engine results at Google, some black hat SEO's (and a few clueless beginners) realized the value of a link from the online encyclopedia and began link spamming blatantly. So recently Wikipedia posted the "nofollow" tag to all outbound links, purportedly to stop SEO Spam by reducing the value of those outbound links.

SEO's weren't the only ones to notice the value of Wikipedia entries. Microsoft became the focus of Wikipedia editors wrath when someone at Microsoft attempted to buy some edits to entries unfavorable to Microsoft. That gaff was a PR nightmare for Microsoft and encourages others to attempt underhanded methods of editing articles to favorable from negative or controversial.

Because reputation management is so critical for companies, and because Wikipedia entries can follow right on the tail of company web sites in the search results pages, it has become routine for PR departments, marketing departments and product managers to monitor what is said about their company in Wikipedia. The problem comes when they learn that they can edit entries and just jump in there and do that before becoming valued members of the community - and don't even engage those who are respected community members in conversation through accepted forums and public discussions.

Against this background, Search Engine Strategies offered a session in New York on day 3 of the conference titled, "Wikipedia & SEO" where the decscription was:

This session looks at appropriate ways to interact with the service. It also examines if there's more that can be done to make Wikipedia editors more accepting of marketers and to make marketers more understanding of the Wikipedia community goals.

The key lines there are "appropriate ways to interact" and "understanding ... community goals" because, unlike press releases, marketing campaigns, sales sheets and testimonials, Wikipedia is FACT based and neutral.

So the SES NY session opened with Niel Patel of Advantage Consulting Services, giving examples of how he had tested the limits of spamming at Wikipedia by attempting to link spam under multiple accounts. He said with a grin that his entries were very quickly deleted and he was banned from the community. He continued on that track by explaining to the audience what NOT to do, including:

• Link building
• Add biased or sales info
• Delete accurate info.

Reversing from the negative, Patel then suggested those items that bring value to the community:

• Don't be a dick
• Develop a reputation as an editor
• Add information first, links second
• Follow the notability rule.
• Wikis are everywhere - find them and contribute, edit.

Jonathan Hochman of JE Hochman & Associates followed with a stern warning that if you make the Wikipedia "Spam Blacklist" that you are extremely unlikely to ever get off that list, which is universally applied to all wiki's using the system - not just Wikipedia. Hochman also claimed to have many examples of those with Wikipedia links getting more traffic from Wikipedia than from Google searches for their primary keyword phrase and that those clicks convert at a higher rate than searches do.

Don Steele, Director of Digital & Enterprise Marketing, Comedy Central took the mic next and explained how Wikipedia was a top ten referrer for the company, which gets a total of eight million pageviews monthly. Surprisingly, he claimed that Comedy Central was an aggressive SEO and SEM player and that they proactively communicate with the editors and community of Wikipedia because great entries referencing their TV shows could save them $20,000 monthly in PPC costs.

Not surprisingly he briefly mentioned the Colbert Report and South Park as major drivers of traffic through Wikipedia entries, pointing out that often after a show airs, multiple new entries are posted about each of the shows within the hour following broadcasts.

Stephen Spencer of NetConcepts was last and spent the most time proposing that anyone wanting to make edits or contribute articles spend time becoming a valued member of the Wikipedia community by:

• Developing a profile that proves that you are an upstanding member of the community.
• Incorporate content edits when adding a link. It makes it harder to revert your edit.
• Communicate with the main editor of he article before adding an external link that you think is valuable but could be looked at with suspicion and removed.
• Add substantiation with references.
• Adding value, rather than just editing a link.
• Create a new entry by getting social via the talk page, not directly editing the article itself.
• Maintain activity on your profile at all times to be a contributing member of community.

So we actually end up with the panel saying, Don't Spam, Contribute.

Mike Valentine is an SEO Specialist offering occassional commentary on Search Engine Developments through his Reality SEO Blog and developed WebSite101 Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial in 1999 to help educate the little guy to the intricacies of online business.

Searching for SEO Meaning at MSN Live Search

In the past, I've been critical of MSN for not participating in conferences. Today I'm going to be critical of them because they did participate. Steve Berkowitz, Senior Vice President, Online Services Group for Microsoft, was the keynote for day 2 of SES NY 2007 and it is one of the first keynotes I've regretted attending. I would have rather slept in.

It sounds as though Mr. Berkowitz has drunk the corporate Kool Aid. In his Q&A session with Danny Sullivan this morning at the New York Hilton, he called Microsoft "Amazing" no fewer than 10 times. (Actually he did reserve one of those for Google.)

Now his move from Ask.com - which he characterized himself as a "rowboat" - to Microsoft - which he calls a "Cruise Ship" by comparison, would no doubt be quite a transition.

To be fair to Berkowitz, I've heard tech industry commentators talk about Microsoft in much the same way - characterizing the people there and the projects they work on as nothing short of magical - but the morass of corporate culture somehow stifles all the smart people and waters down their projects until they are weak and wimpy.

It's interesting that Ask.com is only a point or two away from Live.com in search referrals for many web sites. Even though (as Berkowitz has said) the little Ask.com rowboat is small, nimble and capable of a change in direction by dipping an oar in the water - MSN Live takes forever to change course - neither has been able to gain significant market share from Google.

Normally I like to quote liberally from keynotes, but that would make this article sound like a puff piece for MSN Live, because Berkowitz had so little to say if it wasn't glowing praise for his employer. He did say repeatedly that great ("amazing") stuff was coming, but wouldn't say what it was.

So all we have to base our expectations and insights on are silly things like Ms. Dewey (who I had heard about but hadn't experienced "live"). She unexpectedly interrupted a Danny Sullivan Question to Steve Berkowitz, stepped up onto the stage in character of Ms. Dewey and continued her act (played by Janina Gavankar) interrupting and answering questions posed by Sullivan.

The little show was clearly planned, Berkowitz had to know about it, but Sullivan seemed a bit bewildered and flustered. The routine made absolutely no sense to me and the audience didn't respond terribly well to it either. I think Ogilvy Advertising should be fired from the Live Search account because this character and the website is absurd.

For those who haven't experienced it, Ms. Dewey answers questions after you type something in a search box. It is usually something cryptic that might apply to nearly any question, and there are 600 short film clips which make up her store of responses to questions.

The algorithm for that must have taken some engineers far too long, even though it doesn't work terribly well. Then after the odd (sometimes ascerbic) answer from Ms. Dewey, you get a group of three search results on the right side of the screen. If you hover your mouse over the bottom of the third result, then more results scroll upward. These are clearly Live.com results but scrolling isn't obvious and only three answers to your question?

I don't get it - who wants to wait 5 - 10 seconds for that flash movie to load, then wait 10 - 20 seconds more for the response to load (Ms. Dewey is thinking...), then wait for three results where it isn't clear there are more?

Further, there is a "Best of Dewey" button - which is reminiscent of "I'm Feeling Lucky" so I typed a question in the search box and clicked "Best of Dewey" waited 10 seconds and got my query replaced by something I didn't type. OK, I get it, most popular clips - but they're not good enough to justify that 10 to 15 second wait for a new clip each time you click the "best of" button.

So after sitting through the keynote, I'm not sure what I came away with, other than a page and a half of notes I can't easily assemble into an article. So to prove I was there and show how little of substance was discussed, here's a small chunk of my notes as an example.

Depth of engagement with users. Yahoo cross-network traffic. Search better integrated into MSN in a much cleaner way. Advantages of Microsoft is it's reach. Data center perspective. Storage perspective. We're moving everything from the desktop to the cloud. Microsoft has some amazing stuff going on... Great resources. Licensing business. subscription business.

I'm bewildered by Ms. Dewey, I'm confused by how Microsoft can be so "amazing" and still not produce a substantial and competitive search product, I'm left wondering where Steve Berkowitz is leading Live Search and I am utterly at a loss for what to say about Live.com except maybe to ask, "Where's the search referral traffic?"

Mike Valentine is an SEO Specialist offering occassional commentary on Search Engine Developments through his Reality SEO Blog and developed WebSite101 Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial in 1999 to help educate the little guy to the intricacies of online business.