The Range Blog » Industry News

Bergdorf Goodman Launches iPhone App: The Shoe Salon

Courtney Wegner — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:00:57 +0000

This week, another Range client launched an iPhone application. Bergdorf Goodman, a high-end luxury retailer, introduced “The Shoe Salon” to position themselves as the place to buy the newest and trendiest designer shoes.

Each day, the iPhone app features a new designer style, available for purchase for 24 hours exclusively through the app or in Bergdorf’s New York City store. The app is free, and for every download through March 31, Bergdorf Goodman will donate $5 to City Harvest. The app is user-friendly with a quick and easy checkout process.

See the app here.

The Shoe Salon - an iPhone App from Bergdorf Goodman

Get Ready for Google Social Search!

Kerry Dean — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:26:06 +0000

First things first: Social Search is not Social Media! Before you read any further, read that statement again. Okay. Thank you. Now we can move forward.

If you have not heard about Social Search, it is a product that GoogleLabs launched back in Oct-2009. For the past few months, you have had the opportunity to opt in to Social Search. If you have not opted in, oh well. It does not really matter because in a few days Google will begin displaying Social Search results for anyone who is logged into the Google account while they are performing searches on Google. How about that?!

But what exactly is Social Search?

As the internet has grown, our level of connectedness has grown, and today there is an unprecedented number of social networking sites. You probably have an account on a few of them. Personally, I love Facebook and Twitter. It’s just so fun to get real-time updates about my friends, family and colleagues. With social search, we will be able to see results from your social circle in the Google SERPs. That’s where this is heading.

Based on links and content from your Google profile, Google will be able to determine your social circle. And from that social circle, Google will find content to display in a section of the search results. In order to see social search results, follow these tips from Google:

You can create a rich social circle and start seeing social search results by following a few simple steps:

Add new people to your social circle by adding them to the “Friends”, “Family” or “Coworkers” group in your Google contacts
Create a Google profile and add links to services where your friends create content
If you would like to see more content from your Google contacts, encourage them to create a Google profile and add links to their content there

You can find out more about the content for Social Search here. For now, check out this video from Google:

So there you have it: Google Social Search. What do you think about Social Search?

SEO Industry Quick Hits (Nov. 30, 2009)

Kerry Dean — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:05:19 +0000

You may call them quick hits. You may call it scatter shooting. You may just refer to it as news. Regardless, here are some recent developments in our world of search marketing and SEO:

DMOZ 2.0 is on the way in 2010. I don’t know who this blog belongs to, but it seems to have a lot of inside information about the forthcoming, upgraded version DMOZ (aka DMOZ 2.0).
Malcolm Coles has a great write-up on the new Google layout. From the look of things, Local SEO will be crucial for all websites when this layout rolls out to all Google data centers.
Black Friday boasts $595M in U.S. online holiday spending; Up 11% versus a year ago (via comScore)
Some 19% of Americans will use their mobile devices for shopping this holiday season, according to a Deloitte survey.
Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday showed a strong surge in online shopping searches, with searches for “Black Friday” up by more than 20%, year over year.

Enjoy!

Google Caffeine Index Now Live on One Data Center

Kerry Dean — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:06:39 +0000

For anyone who is interested, Matt Cutts has confirmed that the Google Caffeine index is currently accessible on one data center (http://209.85.225.103/). You can go there and check your rankings on the new Caffeine index. However, Matt says that this data center is only returning Caffeine results about 50% of the time. C’mon, Matt. Please make it 100%. We’ve gotta test some keyword rankings. Inquiring clients want to know! :)

Thanks to Barry Schwartz for the update on Caffeine.

SEO Game Changers: Breadcrumbs in the Google Search Results

Kerry Dean — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:35:01 +0000

Recently I was thinking about what I call SEO game changers. These are developments that could have a major impact on the near and distant future of SEO strategies, methods and campaign management. I’m not talking about Yahoo claiming it does not support the meta keywords tag. That’s Bush League stuff that has been widely know for a long time (and, ironically, also disproved many times). I’m talking more about big stuff that will possibly affect the way that we do SEO at the core of our campaigns. Obviously, the typical buzzwords come to mind in regards to the future of SEO: social, mobile, local. But what else is there? I believe breadcrumbs in the search results is an SEO game changer. Let me tell you why.

SEO Game Changers: Breadcrumbs in the Google SERPs

I did a search in Google for things to do london, and that is the result I saw. I was simply scrolling through the results, and the Yahoo! Travel result jumped out at me. It was the #8 result in the SERPs. To be clear, I knew Google was testing a new feature that added a breadcrumb structure to the URL section of each search result. A lot of people were noticing Google’s tests earlier this year, and the breadcrumbs in these test were taking many forms. However, last week, Google made an official announcement about this new feature being launched. Honestly, I didn’t think much of it until I saw it for myself. (Oh, great. Now I sound like some guy who never believed in UFOs until he saw one for himself. But I digest.)

Because I’m an SEO, I have several questions about this new search results feature from Google:

What factors cause Google to show breadcrumbs for certain sites?
Can I do anything on my site(s) to influence Google to create breadcrumbs for my listings in the SERPs?
Do I want breadcrumbs in my site’s listing in the SERPs?
Does it help or hurt clickthrough rates?
Will this feature eventually replace the URLs in all search results?
Can I track visits from these breadcrumbs?

I must admit that I really like these breadcrumbs in the SERPs. Google refers to the breadcrumbs as an improvement, so I can’t imagine they would hurt clickthrough. Also, with more links in my site’s listing, I will have more opportunities for clicks. That’s always nice! Like Google SiteLinks, these breadcrumbs are obviously driven by the Google algorithms. Right now, we have no direct control of them, but I do believe we can optimize our sites with the SERPs breadcrumb in mind. And that’s why this is an SEO game changer: SEOs will soon be adding this to their list of strategies for SEO campaigns.

In reality, SEO will still be SEO, but this new feature brings into focus the hierarchy of a site and the optimization of internal linking. It also makes me wonder about need for semantic URLs. If my URL is not going to be displayed, does it really matter if it contains several relevant keywords? In fact, if Google displays these breadcrumbs for several listings in the SERPs, does it really matter what my URLs look like at all? Of course it does! We still have to keep doing SEO like we have been doing SEO, but now we have to consider the on-site factors that may be contributing to these breadcrumbs.

Website owners can no longer ignore internal linking strategies or URL structures. Furthermore, all SEOs will need to consider the keywords used for internal linking within their websites. We also need to consider the clickthrough rate of keywords in these breadcrumbs. It’s actually a lot to think about. In my opinion, that’s the main reason that this development changes the SEO game. It forces everyone to consider site architecture, hierarchy and internal linking strategies. It also proves the need for an internal breadcrumb for every website. In the end, there is an opportunity for a higher clickthrough rates with these breadcrumbs, and no one can ignore that!

PS. I would not be a true SEO if I neglected to mention that there is the possibility that Google could mess this up for some sites. Some site owners may not like or agree with the hierarchy breadcrumbs that Google displays in their respective listings. Should there be the opportunity to opt out of this feature in Webmaster Central? I’m sure someone will ask for that. Or someone will be yelling about it on Twitter. [Note: I love the SEOs who get mad at Google for taking too many liberties with other peoples' websites and incomes.]

Update: I have been thinking about this one point from Google’s blog post:

Often, however, URLs are too long, too short, or too obscure to add useful information…The new text (breadcrumb) provides useful information about the page. [Google]

If we want Google to give you a breadcrumb in the SERPs, should we create ‘bad’ URLs? These ‘bad’ URLs could be too long, too short or too obscure. Would that not increase the chance that Google gives us a breadcrumb in our search listings? Just saying is all…

18 Days Later: Undead GeoCities Pages Roam the Interwebs

Kerry Dean — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:31:42 +0000

Zombieland was an awesome movie. But what happens when zombies overtake the internet in URL form? Well, I’m not exactly sure what happens. All I can tell you is that 18 days ago Yahoo closed GeoCities. Geocities had a lot of pages. Tens of millions. Maybe a hundred million. I’m not really sure about that either. Now that I think about it, I don’t really know much at all. However, I do know that there are at least 64 GeoCities pages that are not dead. They are undead. Here’s a list I created, sorted alphabetically:

If Yahoo closed GeoCities on October 26, 2009, why are we still seeing GeoCities pages that are live? Are they after our brains? Or could they possibly be persuaded to link to me? Let’s hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Actually, Yahoo did say that GeoCities Plus accounts would stay active. Thanks to Matt McGee for getting Yahoo to confirm that. But that brings up a really big issue: Google, Yahoo and Bing have removed GeoCities URLs from their respective indices. Does that mean that these GeoCities Plus pages can never show up in the SERPs? If so, do these GeoCities Plus account users feel cheated? First, they have to pay to have their GeoCities pages kept alive. Furthermore, their pages now get less search traffic. I think I would be a little upset, especially if my GeoCities page represented an income for me.

FYI, there is a site called Reocities, which tried to index/salvage as much of GeoCities as possible. The Internet Archive also announced plans to archive as much of GeoCities as possible because they, too, wanted to keep the legacy alive. I applaud the efforts of those sites.

Google Caffeine Going Live After Holiday Season

Kerry Dean — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:33:57 +0000

Over the past few months, Google has been tinkering with a new project, codename Caffeine. Because we are fanatics about SEO and Google algorithm changes, we have been keeping a close eye on the changes in Caffeine. Google described this new Caffeine project as the “next generation architecture for Google’s web search”. It really is a project that will affect how Google crawls, indexes and ranks websites.

Google actually launched a site at this URL. On this site, you could perform searches and get a glimpse into the world of the search results from the Caffeine algorithm. As we investigated the ranking results in Caffeine, we noticed the top 10 rankings were undergoing daily fluctuations, for brand and non-brand search terms and phrases. Overall it was very unpredictable. There were times when the rankings for one keyword would change throughout the day. One thing we could all agree on: Google was presenting results more quickly. Google must have decided that users wanted results more quickly.

Google updated the Caffeine algorithm every day. With the rise of real-time search (i.e. Twitter and Facebook updates), as well as the continued explosion of image search and video search, we were expecting to see a lot of new results in the top 10 rankings for any given keyword or phrase. In fact, many SEOs are guessing that this new algorithm will affect the core nature of how URLs are ranked via links and PageRank. Caffeine was also a way for Google to test the placement of news, images, videos, shopping results, etc… in a new layout for universal search results. You can see a lot of that today already. There’s more images, videos and news items in the top 10 results. It appears that Caffeine will bring about even more changes in the layout for universal search.

Today, Google took down the Caffeine sandbox::

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.
Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

Matt Cutts, Google’s chief spam cop and all-around spokesperson for all things search, followed up on his blog with this:

I know that webmasters can get anxious around this time of year, so I wanted to reassure site owners that the full Caffeine roll out will happen after the holidays. Caffeine will go live at one data center so that we can continue to collect data and improve the technology, but I don’t expect Caffeine to go live at additional data centers until after the holidays are over. Most searchers wouldn’t immediately notice any changes with Caffeine, but going slowly not only gives us time to collect feedback and improve, but will also minimize the stress on webmasters during the holidays.

One thing to note is that the algorithm change will not be launched until after the holidays. We believe the new algorithm will have an impact for our clients, but it is virtually impossible to know what those changes might be, especially now that they have taken down the Caffeine sandbox. They will have 2-3 more months to update Caffeine even further before it launches, so it would be pure conjecture to predict the ways it may or may not affect the rankings for our clients. However, we do believe that Google will still continue to lead the search engine world in rewarding solid SEO strategies while providing the most relevant results.

In the end, the search results page layouts and keyword rankings will change. But that should be no surprise. Google launches major algorithm updates 2-3 times per year, and they do not typically publicize it. That is precisely why SEOs are taking note of Caffeine. In my opinion, Caffeine is a call-to-action for all search marketers to expand SEO campaigns to encompass images, videos, press releases, news, shopping, books, related searches, social accounts, etc… Google has shown us that they are presenting more and more of those items in the top results. The need for a solid, aggressive SEO strategy is indisputable, simply because the competition for homepage real estate has increased with the introduction of the universal search elements mentioned above.

SEO can no longer remain in the background of your search marketing campaigns. SEO cannot be paused. SEO cannot be offset by bigger PPC budgets. In the long run, you can’t afford to ignore social media, mobile search, image search optimization and asset management. Heaven forbid, you may even need to get a Twitter account. You must embrace all aspects of SEO. Or you will be defeated in the SERPs.

Google has thrown down the gauntlet. When Caffeine goes live, your rankings may not fluctuate very much in the short term. I mean, c’mon. You’ve got a huge brand name, and your website has tons of inbound links. You are a PR6! Well, don’t get too comfortable. You may not be able to simply rest on title tags, meta tags, inbound links and PageRank. With the increased competition, it is getting tougher to rank in the top 10. And the big question is: What are you going to do about it?

Oh Where, Oh Where Has My SSP Gone?

Blake Suggs — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:31:14 +0000

Unless you have been living under a rock, you have heard the news about Yahoo SSP’s planned demise on December 31, 2009. This piece of news is big for travel in many ways, the biggest of which might be its effect on how travel advertisers spend their budgets. For many travel advertisers, SSP has been a savior for years as far as overall program profitability. Advertisers were able to spend more in other channels due to the incredible efficiency and volume of SSP which brought their overall ROI down to an acceptable level. No more, ladies and gentlemen.

So what are we going to do now?

My answer is three-fold:

Get better about what we’re doing elsewhere
Redistribute – believe it or not, there are other low-cost high-efficiency channels out there
Reset expectations all around.

The answer above means that we’ll have to work harder in managing more programs as well as putting more work into the actual maintenance of these programs. That’s okay, though, because it has always been known that SSP would eventually cease to exist.

On top of working harder and finding new channels and ways to expand current ones, we’ll have to reset expectations. Our job is to help our clients not only explain the SSP change, but it’s also to help them reset expectations within their organizations if possible. While it’s true that ol’ faithful is leaving us in December, we’re not in a position where we need to cut spend – in fact it becomes even more paramount to solidify our presence in other channels.

In the BINGinning

Blake Suggs — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:56:25 +0000

Needless to say, there has been much ado about Microsoft’s recent release of BING. Everyone seems to have their own opinion about the initial release, what it means to advertiser and agencies and what we can all expect as far as how it’s going to affect the way we do business.

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!

What’s the Deal with All These Mispelings?

John Greer — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:01:38 +0000

If you have an attentive web analytics guru or agency, you may have noticed an odd trend in search engine keyword traffic: misspellings are totally hot right now. If you’re curious, it has a lot to do with Google Suggest, which is Google’s way of guessing what you are going to search for while you type. Formerly a resident of the Google toolbar, Google Suggest has moved on up, having recently leased a spot on your homepage.

You’ve no doubt seen this application, but it does more than finish your sentences. Not only does Google toss out common searches based on your typing, a URL might even appear for the first listing or in a sponsored ad at the bottom. Such is the case in the screen capture below, where all one has to do is type “flic” before a link to flickr.com is shown.

Google search for Flic

Fancy and convenient. But how does this look in your web analytics? The good news is that the click will still appear as a natural search or paid search visit in most services. However, the associated keyword in the case above is simply “flic.” All of a sudden, many sites are going to notice an uptick in misspelled words similar to their brand from Google, and likely a drop in the proper spelling “Flickr.” Take a look for yourself and see if this explains why people might be searching for your “websit.”