Photo thanks to Lorelei Ranveig.
Web.com president Dr. Jeff Stibel is one of the inventors of search engine interfaces and has a paragraph of titles after his name. In a recent blog post and Harvard Business Review Podcast he claims that the brain is a reasonable model for understanding the internet.
I disagree.
Dr. Stible argues that the internet is a brain, and Google is its memory. In the brain the most powerful thoughts are formed by connections of billions of synapses, and these memories are the most likely ones to come up in daily thought.
Others are accessed by sending “thought queries” to the brain, bringing up memories we though we had forgotten. Of those, only the top few receive attention. The rest are ignored.
A similar system exists online. The more pages that link to a website, the more important that website is and the more often it is “remembered” (shows up on search results). But the more specific the query, the more less-important sites will become more relevant.
This analogy is good for conceptualizing. Links=synapses, websites=neurons, internet=brain, etc. In fact it’s a pretty accurate model for the construction of the internet.
But the model falls apart when you realize that it takes more to be “remembered” on the internet than the intrinsic quality of the memory itself. Stibel’s advice to small business owners (from his blog):
So what should you do? Follow the brain.
Stop trying to game Google and focus on building value. Improve the quality of your site, remove the clutter and focus on attracting relevant sites to link to your site. And if you are looking for a good model, look no further than Google’s website: uncluttered, massive links in to the site, and a nice big button for sending your information on.
A real memory’s worth is the intrinsic value of the memory. But a website, although it may be beneficial and relevant, must be configured in such a way as to allow the memory engine (Google) to remember it.
In practice, “gaming” Google is just as important as providing value. The fundamental difference between the brain and the internet is that online memories (sites) must to be configured correctly to be remembered (ranked well). It’s not enough for a site to simply be valuable.
And you have control of exactly how your site will be remembered. With real memories you don’t. Online you can pick and choose which thoughts (searches) you want to show up for, then configure your online “memory” to do just that.
The brain does not have all of those factors to consider, and that’s why Dr. Stible’s model should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s a good theory, but in practice “gaming” Google means configuring your site to be found easily by the online memory engine.
The practical ability to configure individual memories clashes with Dr. Stible’s model of the internet as a brain, and perhaps that is the reason he advises against it.
In the end, the internet is not a brain. Making decisions based on an incomplete external model overlooks the realities within the concrete system, and can end up hampering your online marketing efforts.
If you think it’s tough getting people in your company to agree, you should see the design process at a web developer.
Everyone is an expert in their field and wants to set up the design a different way.
All those personalities clash (and mesh) spectacularly.
Imagine this meeting…
____________________
Frank Lloyd Wright:
That was Donald Trump and he wants a website. He says that we can make it however we want but if it sucks, he’ll buy our company and fire everyone.
Andy Warhol:
I see a bright, shiny homepage with light pinks, yellows, and greens, offset by a dark red border, symbolizing Trump-like responsibility…
Ernest Hemingway:
(Drinks swig from flask and slams on table) The copy should be solid. That’s most important. Small words. Big meaning. Whitespace everywhere: no colors. Maybe some gray. But no frills. Sites need words, not pictures.
Andy:
Donald loves colors! Everyone does!
Mr. Wright:
The site must be usable. I recommend a streamlined architecture, enabling the user to flow effortlessly from each page to the next, while incorporating code that can be read by any device: mobile phone, laptop, desktop, Blackberry, etc.
Andy:
Nobody cares about the code. People will see the site, real people! They need colors: red for hunger, purple for sex…
RON POPEIL:
I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT WE NEED TO SELL SELL SELL!!! DONALD LOVES SALES!!! KEYWORDS EVERYWHERE!! CALLS TO ACTION! SNAPPY HEADLINES! 5 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR LIFE NOT SUCK! HOW TO BE LIKE THE DONALD!!
Hemingway:
Ron. Solid copy, written succinctly, sells itself.
RON POPEIL:
BUT WE NEED TESTIMONIALS!!!
Andy:
Ugly testimonials wreck the site’s ambiance.
Hemingway:
Colors wreck meaning.
Mr. Wright:
Each user needs to find the information they seek easily and quickly. That is paramount.
Andy:
But if it’s ugly they’ll leave!
Hemingway:
Too many frills distract the eye. Words matter most.
RON POPEIL:
NOTHING MATTERS IF WE LOSE MONEY!!!
Mr. Wright:
No one spends money if they can’t figure out how. Usability is paramount.
Andy:
Pretty colors!
Hemingway:
Words! No more.
RON POPEIL:
REVENUE!!!! ITS DONALD TRUMP!!!
____________________
And so on. Eventually, if all goes according to plan, a gorgeus, usable, well-written and profitable website evolves.
But sometimes it takes some negotiating 
(P.S. 100 points to the first person who can tell who each character represents)
Photo thanks to Jan Tik.
If you haven’t heard already, Adobe made waves last week when it gave “flash player technology” know-how to Google and Yahoo, enabling both search engines to crawl links presented in a flash video object. (Microsoft opted out of the deal, citing competition issues with Adobe.)
Before this announcement web developers frowned upon using tons of flash technology on a website because the search engines had no way to follow flash links. And if search engines couldn’t see your content, chances were that users wouldn’t either. Flash SEO was, effectively, an oxymoron.
Adobe’s announcement brings up some interesting questions and concerns:
Does Flash SEO Really Work?
Yes.
Thanks to some up-to-the-minute testing by Gary Moyle and Co. over at Guava, we can be assured that Google’s internet-crawling robots actually can follow links contained within in a flash movie. Adobe’s announcement was met with some initial skepticism but it appears that everything is working as planned.
Flash SEO = Great Rankings for Existing Flash Websites?
No.
Because existing Flash websites couldn’t be crawled by search engines, designers had no motive to make them search engine friendly. They paid attention to aesthetics and pictures and colors, but not to things like keyword density, page titles, or internal linking structure. I.e., the things that search engines use to rank pages.
Most existing Flash sites are constructed so poorly that while Google’s ability to crawl them might boost their rankings initially, they will be no match for optimized sites in competitive search terms over the long run without drastic modifications.
Flash SEO vs. Regular SEO
The field is so new (less than a week old), that best practices for Flash SEO are completely unknown. Today’s SEO industry evolved over 15+ years of trial and error. Original SEO’s evolution involved optimizers finding easy loopholes to boost rankings, Google shutting them down, SEO’s finding more loopholes, Google shutting those down, etc.
Google consistently works to bring the best results to its searchers and has gotten pretty good at it: the easiest way to rank well today is to provide relevant, up to date content. And the best people to do that on today’s web are still proven SEO’s, not flash developers.
Flash SEO and “Flash Bombing”
One scary scenario Gary mentions is “flash bombing.” Because Google’s robots index all links in a Flash video (even the hidden ones), it is possible for deviant developers to hide hundreds of invisible links within flash videos to boost rankings. So the user doesn’t see them, but the Googlebot does and can’t know the difference.
In the early days of SEO practices like this caused a major headache for search engine algorithms. Search engine results pages were filled with spammy results that came from unethical linking practices. It took a lot of time an effort to write code that effectively sorted the wheat from the chaff, and kept the two separated.
It remains to be seen what impact Flash SEO will have on the future of search engine rankings. As a cutting edge Internet Marketing agency, we can’t wait to start experimenting.
For more info, visit our Flash SEO page.
A quick thought before I leave:
I went to the Wal-Mart site to look for some workout equipment, and a survey popped up in my face. Annoyed, I agreed to take it and lie to show them how annoying pop-ups are.
The first question was an age question, with seven answers ranging from “Under 18″ to “65 and over.”
I chose 65 and over, obviously.
Suddenly the survey shut down, took me to a page thanking me for my time, and closed the window.
After the first question? There are four possible reasons Wal-Mart would do this:
1) They wisened up to people lying on surveys
2) They don’t think people 65 or over can take an online survey
3) They don’t care what people 65 or over think
4) All of the above
There’s a 75% chance they have a negative opinion of their customers. If I were them I’d just skip the survey and pay for some focus groups, rather than run the risk of making a customer angry.
In a sign that online video is becoming increasingly popular, Hitwise is reporting that US YouTube visits have increased 26% from last year’s numbers.
For many, YouTube has become the preferred destination for everything from movie trailers to how-to videos. Many video podcasts are also uploaded to YouTube, and the vast amount of random, hilarious videos cannot be understated.
Myspace TV holds the second place spot, though lost 44% of its traffic from last year. My theory is that this has a lot to do with Fox shows being streamed from Hulu instead of Myspace.
Google Video is still impressively in third place, even though Google now owns YouTube and has thrown most of its video love behind that. As a result, Google Video’s traffic is down 52%.
Yahoo! Video is clinging to fourth place, trying to ride out all the Yahoo! drama going down in Sunnyvale. From last year, traffic has dropped 31%.
In last place we have Veoh, the company with the smallest market share but the biggest percentage gain in traffic. Since last year, Veoh’s visits have increased 32%. What exactly this means remains to be seen. Will Veoh come on even stronger before this year ends and perhaps steal third or fourth place? Only time will tell.
Forrester Predicts Substantial Growth for Search Marketing Industry. If you’re not currently utilizing search marketing, you’re competition is probably beating you to the punch.
Local online video ad revenues will skyrocket in the next few years, increasing from $10.9 million in 2007 to $1.5 billion by the end of 2012 - a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 167.8% - according to The Kelsey Group’s US Local Video Forecast (2007-2012).