We recently sat down with the combined Microsoft/Yahoo teams to further discuss platform integration. Early in the conversation, I found myself frustrated by the change because of the lack of seemingly any outside SEM consultation.

I’m still a little disillusioned by our partner’s process, but change is good, right? How will the partnership advance? If their intention is scale, is it feasible for long-term growth “as is”?

The following few points bring up a few integration woes and where they may need to improve…

Read the full article in Search Engine Watch here: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640720

When will Google remove those old URLs from their index?

Hey Yahoo! Have you even heard of a 301 redirect?

Partial Credit for Bing. They never really indexed our old blog very well anyways.

All 3 top search engines still have a lot of URLs indexed from the previous blog location:

• Google: 127 URLs indexed
• Yahoo: 244 URLs indexed
• MSN Bing: 29 URLs indexed

This is not surprising in the least bit. While all search engines advocate the use of 301 redirects when changing URL structures and/or domains, they don’t seem to remove the old site URLs very quickly. In my experience, it can take a up to 3 months. It really just depends on the number of URLs and other factors. I mean, maybe googlebot is having a rough day or something.

The old Range blog at rangeonlinemedia.com/blog had about 300 URLs. Included in those 300 URLs were post pages, archive pages, tags, author pages and other links on the blog. As mentioned earlier, we created 301 redirects for all URLs. Here is how we redirected those URLs:

• Posts (301 redirected on a 1-to-1 basis to the post URLs on the new blog)
• Archives (301 redirected all archive pages to the http://therangeblog.com/)
• Tags (301 redirected all tag pages to the http://therangeblog.com/)
• Author pages (301 redirected all author pages to the http://therangeblog.com/)
• Images, CSS files, RSS links, etc… (301 redirected all misc file URLs to the http://therangeblog.com/)

I typically advocate 301 redirecting every URL on a 1-to-1 basis to its counterpart URL on a new site. For TheRangeBlog.com, we did that for post pages. For all other URLs, we created a wildcard redirect. Basically, all non-post URLs are 301′d to the homepage of TheRangeBlog.com. It was a time/resource issue. I know, I know. Not perfect, but it’ll have to do. BTW, none of our old blog URLs had any links, so I wasn’t too worried about 301′ing a random tag URL to its counterpart on the new blog. Just sayin’ is all…

Well, that’s about it for now. Stay tuned for more – in the future!

• We removed the placeholder HTML file for the homepage.
• We removed the disallow entry from the robots.txt file.
• We updated the privacy setting in Wordpress to allow search engine access
• We updated our corporate website to reflect the new blog URL.
• We created and uploaded the 301 redirects from all of the old blog URLs to the counterpart URLs on the new blog domain. [Note: We did not write 1-to-1 redirects for every URL. Due to time constraints, we only created 1-to-1 redirects for the 60 or so blog post URLs. For all other URLs, we created a wildcard redirect that 301'd all URLs to the new blog's homepage. Due to our previous blog's lack of links, I caved on this item. In most other cases, I recommend 1-t0-1 redirects when changing URL structure or moving from one domain to another.]
• We built an XML sitemap for the new blog.
• We created/verified Webmaster accounts with Google, Yahoo and Bing. In these accounts, we submitted our XML sitemap location. All sitemaps were accessed within 24 hours of submission.

All of that took place last Tuesday (3-Nov-2009). Today is November 10, 2009. How have the search engines responded? Let’s take a look at our site counts in Google, Yahoo and MSN Bing:

Google Site Count: 8 URLs indexed

Yahoo Site Count: 1 URL Indexed

MSN Bing Site Count: 49 URLs Indexed

Just in case you cannot see the pictures, here are the results:

• Google: 8 URLs indexed
• Yahoo: 1 URL indexed
• MSN: 49 URLs indexed

That’s amazing to me. In my experience with crawling speed and indexing speed, Google typically wins big. But after a week of TheRangeBlog.com being live and active, Bing is clearly winning the race to index our blog. Nice work, Bing! Thanks for taking note of our blog.

I should also note that our blog has almost no inbounds links. Aside from the links from our corporate site and from a few Range Twitter accounts, we have virtually no link authority. Our lack of inbound link love is obviously playing a role in how quickly our site is getting indexed. But worry not – because we are working on links! (And if you are the linking kind, please consider linking to us. I won’t beg, but I would appreciate any link juice. Well, not from bad neighborhoods. Yes, I am an SEO.)

One of the most exciting aspects of BING, at least for me, was the travel engine platform. The way Microsoft made it sound, advertisers were going to have tons of opportunities to expand sales to the Microsoft travel audience. What we have found in our initial foray is a bit different, though. While it’s true that several of our travel advertisers have seen decent gains within Microsoft search, the more cutting-edge prospects within the travel engine have been tied up by big sponsorship deals among OTAs and larger brand advertisers. Now, I’m certainly not condemning these preliminary sponsorship deals, but I look forward to the day when the spaces open up to the rest of us regular guys who do not possess multi-million dollar sponsorship budgets.

Specifically, I would like to see MSN take a more comprehensive approach to detailing its products to advertisers, rather than relying on potential customers to seek out this information. The entire BING travel space could be revolutionary in a few years, and if they’re going to take on Google, they’re going to have to be more proactive about the specifics. How do I take advantage of the new features…tell me please!

Don’t get me wrong, I love paid search. It’s my specialty. It’s logical, predictable, and organized, which appeals to my OCD nature. Social media and mobile may be the next “big things,” but from my vantage point, they’re still very nebulous and unorganized. Give me a basic paid search campaign any day, and I’ll sculpt it into something that will make you some money.

That being said, I can’t help but feel paid search as a whole is getting a little stale. The past several years have seen lots of new ideas and innovations—improved targeting, more control, the capability for real-time changes—the list is actually kind of long. However, recently it seems like every time I hear about a new paid search feature from any of the major engines I get a strange feeling of déjà vu.

Take Yahoo’s recent inclusion of favicons in paid search ads. For those that don’t know, favicons are the snazzy little icons that appear in your address bar next to the http when you visit a website. Taking your site’s favicon and putting it next to the display URL really makes your paid search ad stand out on the page, and helps reinforce your brand:

Neiman Marcus Search Ad

This is a great idea for improving paid search—just like it was when Google tested the exact same thing six months ago.

As another example, take a look at the brand new ad format Google is current beta testing, “Ads Sitelinks.” This feature allows you to add four quicklinks below your paid search ad to let users navigate deeper into the site with a single click:

Ebay.com Search Ad

This is a fantastic idea for segmenting traffic and increasing conversion rate by taking a searcher whose query was very generic and allowing them to choose what portion of your site they’re most interested in. But I can’t help thinking it’s somewhat familiar….where could I have seen something like that before….a Yahoo SSP listing, perhaps?

Ebay.com Sitelinks in the Google SERPs

Yes, you saw it here first. Google is now officially stealing ideas from Yahoo. Sure, both Google and Yahoo offer quicklinks in their natural listings, but until now, Yahoo was the only one to offer them in a CPC ad format. A good idea is a good idea, but I get a little worried when Google’s exciting new feature is something Yahoo has been offering for the past two years.

Yahoo unveils paid search Geo-targeting…..which Google has been doing for years. Microsoft adCenter releases a program that allows you to download campaigns and upload changes from your desktop….just like AdWords. Microsoft’s new Bing features “search within search”….which Google tested last year (granted, Microsoft’s version is much better than Google’s).

I’m not complaining about each engine’s learning from its competitors and “borrowing” ideas that work. I just can’t help but wonder where the new ideas are. What’s the next big thing for paid search? In the past six months I’ve seen massive improvements in content networks, media networks that can target to hit any metric, and social media finally start to come of age. Paid search had a head start on all of these programs, but does that mean its feature set has already peaked?

Interactive marketing is projected to encompass 21% of all marketing spend by 2014….but by then, what percentage of that spend will be for paid search?

Maybe I should get busy learning how to run a social media campaign.

The first question that we got when word of this first came out – much like at the time of the launch of Wolfram Alpha, Cuil and every other media-dubbed Next Big Thing – was ‘how does this change my SEO?’. And it’s a fair question – MSN added new functions and are clearly testing others, and there had been talk of integrating behavioral information into results so that if you looked for ‘fish’ it would know whether you were looking for a restaurant or a rod and reel. Google sneezes and everyone’s rankings change, so what happens when it’s changing – dun dun DUUUUUH – names?

The answer to what Bing will change about how you approach SEO – much like most every other great leap forward in organic search – is nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

No matter what changes are brought to bear by Google, Yahoo and the rest of the bunch, SEO at its core is about three things: Is your content readable, are you pursuing the right keywords and are engines getting maximum value from your site – and until your content doesn’t matter anymore, your SEO strategy should be the same.

That’s not to say that search engines won’t expand their ability to read content, that new keyword sets won’t become important and that there won’t be new ways to put your site’s best foot forward. On this last point, there have been a lot of new opportunities created by Bing and especially by Google to improve both your search positioning and the way that your results appear in search engines. A good SEO team should be working with you on things like applying microformats to your pages and other new opportunities that have arisen with the engines’ newest toys.

Still, these opportunities won’t matter much if engines can’t see your site in the first place, or if you’re trying to sell shoes from a page without the word ‘shoes’ on it. These issues will make up the vast majority of how well you appear in search engines, and have been since the days when dinosaur’s roamed the earth and Google was a twinkle in Larry Page’s eye.

In essence, if you want to be ready for the next big Bing, make sure you’re ready for MSN first and see if that doesn’t take care of most of it.

Apparently, the idea behind Bing is that it should convey to the user the sound that is made when a light bulb goes off in one’s head, like what happens when Wile E. Coyote gets a great idea or when you solve a Rubik’s cube. My colleagues and I chatted about this at length, and we determined that Bing is not the sound that at all goes off in our heads at the point of enlightenment.

For me the sound is an obvious ‘ting’ with some vibrato to it. For my good friend Brian, who tends to be more left brained, the sound is much more course and sharp. We did our best to find it but the closest we could find was ‘e-spark2’. Ding also seemed to be a very popular reponse. Eureka, gasp, AH!….on and on and on. This other guy thought it sounded like the bell on the counter of a cheap motel.

Later, I brought the discussion to the car. Since my daughter and spend a lot of time in the vehicle, and there is usually a lot of empty air to fill, I asked her what she thought about Bing. She’s never been much for short and sweet so her answer didn’t surprise me in the least. A very animated, “wait, wait, I got it, I know this one.” To be honest we both concurred that might be a little long and cumbersome to remember at the keyboard.

Whatever the sound, we’ll see if MSN’s new search is worth me switching from Googling to Binging anytime soon.

Well, don’t take your Nikes off just yet. Google recently announced a slate of updates and new developments, including ways to make your search results prettier and a new emphasis on fresh content. For those who’ve been encouraging clients to add microformats to their pages, you should feel a little vindicated, because these should be right up your alley. If that’s not enough, MSN also announced that they’re updating and rebranding Live Search, naming the concept Bing (previously known as Kumo) and gearing it towards behavioral search. If it works like they say it will, then we’ll have something to celebrate before July 4.

So that’s some good news for the summer, but it’s more applicable for the winter. In terms of development, it’s time to start work (or at least planning) on site enhancements for the 2009 holiday season!

‘But it’s not even June!’ you might be thinking. Just remember to take into account a few important factors:

• Your Site Will be Untouchable in 4 -5 Months: Typically, large ecommerce sites go into a code freeze in October or early November at the absolute latest. A code freeze is a period of time where developers can work on site enhancements, but can’t actually push anything live for anything less than a life-or-death emergency in order to make sure that the site isn’t knocked out by errors at a critical time of year. So, in reality, it’s more like August rather than June on your production schedule.
• Development Takes Time: The planning, pre-development legwork, development and eventual launch of changes to your site – SEO or otherwise – is a long process. Depending on your team and your process, you’re looking from two to six months just to get even simple, natural search-affecting changes made to the site. If you try to start making massive changes to your site in August, you could very easily wind up seeing your Holiday 2009 ambitions coming up sometime next March without some serious overtime or help.
• Search Engines Take Time: If SEO gains are even part of your goal, once you’ve made improvements to your site that are meant to improve your natural search results and seen them pushed live, you’re at the mercy of the engines. It can take anywhere from two days to four weeks to get your changes indexed, and another six to twelve weeks of fluctuations as Google, Yahoo and MSN fully digest your changes and start really advancing your positions.

If you start counting backwards from December with these in mind, Santa’s shadow looms pretty large.

Now is the time to start making your list and checking it twice. Start by looking at your holiday keyword and content strategy, building out your gift pages, fixing any leaks in your natural search potential and getting your site ready to rank for potentially the toughest holiday season in decades. Be a good boy / girl now, and you could find yourself with the kinds of gifts we’ve all been asking for all year: Revenue, growth, and a shot at Holiday 2010.