T-Error

No Tags specified :-)

Sep 25

Search with Just One Click with Quick Search

Search with Just One Click with Quick Search

Quick search is a fun Greasemonekey script that adds a few one-click actions to selected text:

On highlighting any terms on a page, you’ll be able to:

Search Google
Search Wikipedia
Search Google Maps
Use Twitter Search
Tweet instantly
Turn the non-linked text into the URL.

It’s pretty easy to use, just install as a Greasemonkey script and you are done! Now, just highlight any term on the page and you should see the following:

Now, just click through the search engine you need and you’ll be taken to search results page in the same tab / window.

There’s one (solid) issue though that actually has a solution: he tool search local (German) versions of Google and Wikipedia. To solve that, you’ll need to edit the script:

Right-click on the Greasemonkey icon in the FireFox status bar and select “Edit User Scripts“;
Choose “Quick Search” in the sidebar and click “Edit“;
(If you are doing tat for the first time) point the editor you want to open the script with (I was using Dreamweaver);
Find the following text and change google.de and de.wikipedia.org to google.com and en.wikipedia (or your local version). Then save the script and you are done:

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

No Tags specified :-)

Sep 25

Stretching the Vertical : Outside the Box Linking

Stretching the Vertical : Outside the Box Linking

Almost everyone has heard of writer’s block, but what about linking block? Almost every linkbuilder has been there. After 6 months of acquiring links for a client you find yourself hitting a wall.

You’ve checked every backlink for the top competitors’ site, exhausted entire categories in blog directories, utilized normal web directories, written contributing articles to UGC sites and blogger who you’ve established relationships with and even sent out press releases. You feel like every rock has been turned over already, but you still have quotas to fill and a set amount of links (or associated ranking) that has to be filled. How are you going to get those links?

Maybe try stretching the vertical.

What is stretching the vertical?

Stretching the vertical simply means to creatively acquire links from a vertical or category of sites that typically would not naturally link to your client’s site. And the importance of natural link building has been documented before. What you’re trying to do is open up your linking possibilities by expanding into new categories of sites to link to your client, thus stretching the vertical.

Why is it important?

It’s an effective tactic for linkbuilders that, when properly executed, can open up new linking opportunities and possibly rejuvenate your interest in a linkbuilding campaign you feel has hit a wall or has become redundant. It’s important to break out of this rut and seek quality links on authority sites in new categories.

Furthermore, it’s natural. Taking into account user demographics is a major part of vertical stretching as not only financial sites should link to a bank’s money market account page but also families writing about saving money, parents writing about setting up savings options for their kids’ college funds or seniors looking to reinvest their pension in a safer place than the stock market. All of these scenarios make perfect sense, and if you can pinpoint sites which usually do not cover these topics (thus linking to competitors) you can in fact gain a differentiation in linking amongst your competition, which will assist with your rankings.

How can I use it?

Go through your client’s site page by page and identify content on their site relevant to a category that you’re not trying to acquire links from. Maybe they have a page showing they’re environmentally conscious or they sell a product that is targeted at mothers. If you look hard enough there’s bound to be some opportunities. Just remember that you’re going into a vertical that most likely is unnatural to your client’s site, so anchor text selection is important. As long as the post is well written, it’s possible to make almost any anchor text seem natural. The key is making sure there is a valid connection between the subject of the post and the vertical of the blog.

Do you have any examples?

One of my favorite examples was stretching into fashion sites for a travel client. I found out that there’s a big fashion show in New York City, which happened to be one of the cities the client was looking to ranked for some of their key terms. So it was easy to reach out to fashion bloggers and ask them to write about the show and link to the client as a resource for finding places to stay or visit while in New York.

Another would when I found a page on a client’s site discussing their green policies and alternative printing of products on recycled paper with soy based inks. Naturally, I went after green/eco blogs as soon as I received client approval and had a good amount of success bringing in some diverse links (also read The Power of Ecofriendly Link Building).

The key is, sometimes you’ll find yourself in a jam, but by thinking outside of the box, your linking campaign can flourish.

Kevin Hess is an SEO & Linking Analyst for Search & Social, an SEO and Social Media Marketing Agency, where he focuses on implementing ideas and creativity into link acquisition and web presence strategies for client accounts.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

No Tags specified :-)

Sep 25

GMail Outage Leads to Twitter Trending

> GMail Down : Try iGoogle During GMail Outage

GMail, the Google mail application, is experiencing yet another outage which is crippling the millions of users and companies which rely on Google’s Cloud for their daily business and communications. When GMail fails, where do people go?

Besides running back to their Outlook, the buzz about GMail seems to be heating up on Twitter. Here’s a search for GMail.

Are you experiencing problems with GMail? There may be some workarounds. Last time GMail was down I wrote about accessing it via iGoogle and other non-Google third party clients.

Can you access GMail? Please let us know in the comments below.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

GMail Outage Leads to Twitter Trending

No Tags specified :-)

Sep 25

Preview of StumbleUpon’s Upcoming Site Changes

Preview of StumbleUpon’s Upcoming Site Changes

StumbleUpon’s founder Geoff Smith, recently announced to their Beta group members that SU is testing a new interface they plan on implementing. The new design is based around simplicity, which can be seen in the beta changes to the user homepage, submission comments, subscriber options, and even the rating system. The new interface has also undergone a programming update, which seems to be AJAX filled. Below is an excerpt from their official announcement:

“The new design is simpler, more social and search-able. It preserves the functionality of the previous interface while adding the most frequently requested features. The new version is now available to Beta Group members, and will be accessible to the entire community soon.” (source)

Below is a comparison of the current SU homepage and the beta homepage:

As you can see (all images are click-able to improve your viewing experience), SU has removed a lot of the clutter that filled the homepage and created a simpler, clean design. They have also removed some of the recommended stumbles, something they might add back in the future or keep in a separate tab under “Discover”.

Personal Home Page/Favorites

They have also made some drastic changes to user’s personal homepage. The layout is much simpler and easier to navigate. If you look closely you will see the Star Rating system has been replaced with the number of current views for that submission. The sub-tool bar has not been changed that much, but the main navigation has been simplified to three sections, “Discover”, “Favorites”, and “Stumblers.”

They have also simplified the submission process; when you are adding a new link, photo, or post to your personal blog. I noticed the visual editor options was removed, and now there is only one section to submit video, pictures, add a site link or create a blog post.

They have also made some improvements to browsing by tags. They have moved away from the enormous tag clouds, to a simpler drop down menu in your “favorites” section

Friends & Subscriptions

The biggest change to this tab is the organization of this section. In the previous version “Your Friends”, “Your Subscriptions”, “Your Subscribers”, and “Meet People Like You” all appeared on one page, which looks confusing and cluttered. They have improved this buy creating a sub-navigation with those options and couple new ones in separate tabs. Another big change I noticed was the move back from having both friends and subscribers to just having subscribers. You will notice that some of your subscribers will have small arrow icon beneath their names. This icon lets you know if that person allows you to share content with them via the toolbar.

One of the new tabs, called “Recent Visitors” takes an old feature and organizes it in its own section. Previously recent visitors would appear in the right column of your personal homepage. You will noticed the icon I mentioned above next some of my recent visitors.

Stumble has always had the option to find users that relate to you based on the content they stumble. Previously they used a venn diagram to show how similar your favorites were to another user. Another new tab in this section called “Suggestions” shows you people you may know. This feature reminds of the suggestion feature currently being used by Facebook.

I mentioned above, SU has gone back to only having subscribers and people you subscribe to. But they have a new option to help you prevent spam in your toolbar. Below is what the new right column will look like when you visit a user you are not subscribed to. They have removed the Venn diagram on how similar you are and the “Your Interests” section.

The new feature only appears when you click subscribe. You will notice there is a selection box below the subscribe button that gives you the option of allowing shares from that user through your SU toolbar.

They have also replaced the little green dots that would appear next to your friend’s user icons with an “Online Now” section:

They have also simplified the inbox layout, adding an embed scrolling list of your friends to choose from.

Discover/Friend’s Recent Activity

By clicking on the “Discover” tab you are brought to a section where you can view your friend’s recent activity, SU’s top rated sites, recent shares, and browse by topic. Again you can see that SU is planning on moving from the star rating system to a views based rating.

As you can see below, the “Top Rated” tab is a new section, which displays the most popular websites being viewed by StumbleUpon users. The list of popular content usually found on the homepage will be moved to this section.

I know I have had this problem with the SU toolbar sporadically. You receive a share and before you can read the message it disappears. Previously you would have to go to your personal homepage, then to your inbox and from there you would be able to access your recent share history. In the new interface they have created a sub-section under Discover that easily allows you to see recent shares.

Instead of the sub-navigation that lists all the different topics on SU, they have created a simple drop down menu that allows you browse each category.

Discoveries/Submissions

When I looked at the new interface on the first day of the release, the first change I noticed was the removal of the star rating. Which has been replaced with the ability to see how many views a submission has received. They have also expanded your ability to see which users thumbed your submission. In the past you were only able to view some of the users. Unfortunately when I checked again later, there seemed to be some issues with the comment sections for users in beta mode. Below is what I got:

I tried it in non-beta mode and the comments section seemed to be working. As soon as the beta comment section is functioning, we will post an update on it. But why wait on us? StumbleUpon beta is available to anyone in the beta group, below are GMC’s instructions on how to participate in the testing:

“To access the new interface, make sure you have joined the Beta group first. Then go to your Preferences and click on “Switch now!” on the sidebar. In the new interface, the Switch button is located under the Settings menu (you can also click on stumbleupon.com/switch.php [stumbleupon.com] to toggle back and forth).

This interface doesn’t yet support themes, but those will be coming soon. Groups can be accessed via “Groups” in the footer, and then “My Groups”. Groups are still a work in progress, but we’ve started to update them. A new feedback system has also been set up for the new interface Beta testing. Please click on the dark gray “Feedback” tab located on the right side of your screen and enter your question or comment” (source)

You can keep up with current user feedback on the comments thread. SU also has added a feedback button that appears on the right side of the screen that is powered by GetSatisfaction when you are in beta mode:

Notice changes we didn’t cover? Please let us know in the comments below. We will continue to update the SEJ community on StumbleUpon Beta interface changes as the weeks progress. Happy stumbling!

Ryan Sammy is an SEO & Social Media Analyst at Search & Social. Ryan is an active member of many social media communities, and has worked to understand the intricacies of social interaction and engagement from the inside out.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

No Tags specified :-)

Sep 25

Touch-ups for your ad units

You may remember that last year, we added arrows to the bottom of cost-per-click (CPC) ad units. These arrows allow users to browse through additional relevant ads, helping them find exactly they’re looking for.

We’ve been testing slight updates to the look of these arrows, and our experiments have shown improvements in the user experience. As a result, we’ll soon be making a few minor aesthetic changes, including darkening the arrows to make them more visible and orienting all arrows to point left and right. In addition, to help users understand what the arrows do, hovering over the arrows will soon show the labels ‘previous ads’ and ‘next ads’. You’ll see these changes appear in CPC ad units in all languages gradually over the next few days.

Posted by Amy Wu - AdSense Product Manager

No Tags specified :-)