Overcoming The SEO Challenges Of Huge Online Commerce Sites
Ecommerce sites featuring product catalogs present interesting search engine optimization challenges. Typically, these sites will carry large volumes of products, organized into various groupings. Let’s take a look at a snippet of the Zappos home page as an example.:
Notice in the left menu the neat categorization of the shoes category of products on [...]
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Google Addressing Site Hierarchies in SERPs
While Google made the announce of their new inclusion of site hierarchy to help searchers understand the context of a search result more clearly on Tuesday, it also stated that this will be seen globally over the next few days. Well, that brings us to today right? So keep an eye out for the latest update that Google has put into play to try to make their flagship offering, their search engine, better. After all there may come a day when some ‘competitors’ may need to join forces and actually challenge Google search supremacy (oh that’s right that’s already happening).
Google usually shows a green web address, or URL, at the bottom of each search result to let you know where you’re headed. Today we’re rolling out an improvement that replaces the URL in some search results with a hierarchy showing the precise location of the page on the website. The new display provides valuable context and new navigation options.
As most know, oftentimes the URL of search result that would give an indication to those who would think this way that the page they are looking for is part of a larger scheme. Since many URL’s are too long and get cut off on the SERP’s then that benefit is lost.
Google’s answer is to provide a breadcrumb presentation of a site’s hierarchy is it is available for the result. The look of the result (in which each individual word is a link to a different destination) is like this
The information in these new hierarchies come from analyzing destination web pages. For example, if you visit the ProductWiki Spidersapien page, you’ll see a series of similar links at the top, “Home> Toys & Games> Robots.” These are standard navigational tools used throughout the web called “breadcrumbs,” which webmasters frequently show on their sites to help users navigate. By analyzing site breadcrumbs, we’ve been able to improve the search snippet for a small percentage of search results, and we hope to expand in the future.
Whenever anything like this is rolled out I always try to think about this kind of improvement as it relates to the vast majority of Internet users and search engine users. I suspect we over estimate their level of sophistication quite regularly. While this is interesting I don’t even really feel compelled to go to another page within the hierarchy because there is just a little information about the direct result I am looking for and it’s not even the same page so why would I go elsewhere right out of the gate?
Personally, I like to keep things simple. Is this a true improvement or just something else to talk about? Google’s take is that they are impressed with what this does.
When we design the way results appear on google.com, our goal is to get you to the information you’re looking for as quickly as possible. Sometimes that means improving how we represent websites, and other times that means giving you new ways to explore content. We’re always happy when we can introduce a feature, like site hierarchies, that does both!
Maybe my persoanl need for simplicity in an increasingly unsimple world is missing something? How do you see it?
Google Showing Breadcrumb Navigation In Search Results
Confirming our previous reports, Google has announced and explained why and when it’s showing breadcrumb navigation in its search results.
Google says it may show these site heirarchies “for a small percentage of search results” when it improves the search snippet with more context about the link being pointed to. What’s pretty cool is that each [...]
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Google Translate: Now for YOUR Website
Google has long been working on their machine translation offerings. Over last year, they’ve added translation services to Google Reader, Google Toolbar, and Google Docs. And now they’re bringing their translation skillz to you—on your website.
Google announced a new translation widget on Monday, bringing Google Translate to any site. Insert a short script—a mere snippet of code—and users visiting your site will be prompted to translate it into their own language:
Google acknowledges that there are some limitations to their power translations:
Automatic translation is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page. However, it’s not a perfect substitute for the art of professional translation.
Thank you for your humility, Google (even though in our tests, we’ve seen that sometimes we can’t even get the gist of the translated text). Fifty-one languages are available in Google Translate.
What do you think? Will you use Google Translate for your site? Do you use any other translation products?
Google Sitelinks Now In Snippets
The iCrossing blog noticed Google is trying displaying anchor based links directly in the Google search engine snippets (site descriptions). For example, a search for [pension contributions] returns a Wikipedia result with a link directly in the snippet. Here is a picture:
Google recently added anchor based Sitelinks, so this seems to be some [...]
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Is Google Deliberately Sabotaging Bing’s Search Listing?
Despite the millions of dollars Microsoft is spending in an attempt to get us to use Bing, it’s apparently still well aware of the hand that feeds it.
A lot of searchers are still conditioned to begin all web browsing at Google, and Microsoft knows that it’s crucial that Bing is easily found. So, you can imagine their angst at seeing the following in a search for Bing:
Yep, the second result for Bing suggests searchers might wan to stick with Google for a while. Now, if you read the snippet, you’ll see why we even got to this situation–a power outage last Friday temporarily took out Bing’s Travel site.
Apparently, Google’s spider has been on vacation since then:
Notice, Google hasn’t re-indexed the page since July 4th! Do you smell a conspiracy theory? Since when does it take Google that long to revisit a site as popular as Bing?
Bing employees may not be crying foul, but they’re disturbed enough to send a public tweet to Google.
It’s kind of hard to puff up your chest and go cap in hand at the same time, don’t you think?
(via)
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Google Search’s View PDF Link May Go To Google Docs
Typically, when Google shows a PDF document in the Google search results, you see a link to “view as HTML,” in the snippet. Here is a picture of what you see most of the time:
Now, it appears Google is showing a link that reads just “View” and links you to the PDF within a [...]
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How to Write Hundreds of Unique Articles from One Article with MS Excel – Article Theme Versioning
By Asif Anwar
Article Theme Versioning, was chosen as the name for this strategy. Because, you make many unique articles by making version of a specific theme of an article. So, each version contain the same theme. With Article Theme Versioning, you can create hundreds of articles from just one seed article. It involves manual versioning, word spinning, and sentence shuffling. The problem with spinning softwares is that you have to stay on their mercy for quality. But, in Article Theme Versioning with MS Excel you have the total control of your contents.
Why do you need Article Theme Versioning?
- Content was the King, but recently unique contents are the new King.
- Google now uses a duplicate content filter, which filters out your website if you have duplicate contents. Soon the other search engines will follow the same strategy to wipe out Plagiarism.
- There was a golden era of article promotion and press release submission, when you could gain search engine positions by marketing the same article. But, duplicate content filter slapped this form of marketing. But, Article Theme versioning can revive this marketing technique once again.
- Links from various sites with varied contents, have proven to be very affective for getting ranks in Google. Even for directory submission with <250 character snippet contents, any seo professional will advise you to use altered contents. The more altered contents, the better.
- Google and other search engines like unique contents and can assign authority to your site if you have large amount of unique contents on the same subject.
- Google understands that gaming their algorithm is easy by creating links with copy-paste duplicate contents or articles throughout the web. Someday, they might treat links from duplicate contents to be commercially generated, not given voluntarily.
- Writing totally new and unique contents can increase your cost in copywriting and decrease your speed in online marketing.
- If you already have a compelling Web Copy, then you can add value to it through Article Theme versioning.
- There are millions of webmasters, bloggers, copywriters that are looking for contents for their websites or blogs. Use their hunger as your Link Baiting strategy and provide them free Private Label Rights (PLR) articles for their use with a deep link back to the source of your compelling article.
Why MS Excel
For Article Theme Versioning, traditional content spinning or twisting software isn’t used. Instead, we’ll use the most effective tool, MS Excel. MS Excel is great tool for computation, and has been a companion for Search Marketers throughout the world. It is a very strong string or text manipulation tool and we mostly don’t know the use of it. We’ll use MS Excel to generate hundreds of unique articles from one. Here are the major reasons why I like MS Excel for Article Theme Versioning:
- MS Excel has many complex formula to handle and manipulate string or text very easily.
- MS Excel comes with a Thesaurus for Synonyms (easily replace synonyms by Alt + Clicking) which you can replace for getting more spinned sentences.
- You can spin sentences in Ms Excel faster than any other word processing software.
- You can automate sentence spinning and shuffling without giving much effort in manually creating unique articles.
- Since the quality of the articles depends on the input you give, you can have total control of the quality of the contents.
- You can convert the MS Excel files into XML, which can be used in other software or online tools for content automation or management.
How Will it Work?
One thing needs to be made clear. The whole process is manual. i.e. you have to write different versions of the same article and then change each word in the sentence for spinning. However, automated scrambling and shuffling of sentences in the article follow planned patterns to have very little duplicate sentence. Ok, here goes our content versioning, spinning, shuffling methodology:
Phase 1 – Sentence Versioning
First, you have to manually rewrite 4 versions of the article and make structural change in the sentences. But, we keep the same semantic meaning (theme) of each sentences.
For example:
Version-1: I eat rice.
Version-2: As a meal, I only take rice.
Version-3: I usually eat rice every day.
Version-4: Rice is my staple food.
This is just sample of a sentence. But, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th versioning is done manually for all the sentences. So, if there is about 40 sentences in one version, then we have 40X4=160 sentences.
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Please triple click each cell to copy the contents in each cell. Keeping all the contents in HTML format will work better for you to keep the formats along with the template.
Phase 2 – Content Quality Measure
First, do a spell check, so that the same spelling errors are not replicated elsewhere. Then, make sure that the 4 versions are Copyscape verified. Because, before you start spinning and shuffling, you need to make sure that they are not used elsewhere. If duplicate is found, then rewrite them. Also do a Keyword Density Analysis through various seo Suites and ensure that the first and last 100 words contains the target keyword with mentions in the article 2-3 times. This will ensure you that you will not replicate the copied contents.
Phase 3 – Sentence Tabbing
Now, to utilize the manually versioned articles to create more sentences, you need to spin them. And to spin the sentences, you need to have them in order. Having the words in different cells will allow you to manipulate them easily. To do that, you need to put a Tab between the words in Notepad, and then paste them back to MS Excel. So that, you can easily place the words in cells. For the ease in manipulating the sentences, I’ve divided the sentences in 10 cells. However, you can divide the sentences in as much cells you want.
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Please triple click each cell to copy the contents in each cell.
Phase 4 – Sentence Spinning
Last time, we’ve made structural change in sentence manually. Now, we’ll make synonymous change in those sentences within the same sentence structure and create 10 more spinned variation from each sentences.
For example:
Version-1: Telecommunications expense is categorized as one of the top five costs for most businesses as companies are losing more and more money these days.
Version-2: Telecom expenditure is granted as one of the top 5 expenditures for most enterprises as companies are getting less money these days.
Version-3: Telecom cost is deemed as one of the most significant costs for most companies as enterprises are gradually losing money in recent years.
Version-4: Call cost is regarded as one of the top 5 expenses for most enterprises as businesses are throwing away more money recently.
This is the most crucial part of Article Theme Versioning. This phase consumes most of your time, but generates a lot of sentences for you to shuffle. And this phase has most of the quality factors that you should always consider.
Create separate spinning tab for each manual versions. Pull each sentences 3 times in the Spinning Tab (”Referring Sentences” portion). In the example below, we can pull the same sentence 3 times and then use Alt+Click to replace a word with synonym. While, changing a word or phase with synonym, please keep an eye on the meaning of the sentence.
Then, using the “Index” formula, you can scramble the words (”Word Scrambling” portion). The below example gives a specific pattern of scrambling. However, if you wish, you can create another type of scrambling pattern. The scrambling pattern is random, not systematic. However, the pattern should not be redundant and you have to make sure that the pattern generates less duplicates. Therefore, the below scrambling pattern is planned in such a way to reduce duplicacy in the sentences and randomize the scrambling.
This scrambling pattern will generate 9 sentences from the 3 lines in the “Referring Sentence” portion. After the scrambling of words you have to use the “Concatenate” formula to join the words to make the sentences (in “Concatenating Words” portion). Along with the original sentence and the scrambled/spinned sentences, you have 10 versions of the same sentence.
| Referring Sentences | ||||||||||
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | |
| 0 | Original Sentence | |||||||||
| 1 | A1 | B1 | C1 | D1 | E1 | F1 | G1 | H1 | I1 | J1 |
| 2 | A2 | B2 | C2 | D2 | E2 | F2 | G2 | H2 | I2 | J2 |
| 3 | A3 | B3 | C3 | D3 | E3 | F3 | G3 | H3 | I3 | J3 |
| Word Scrambling | ||||||||||
| L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | |
| 1 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,10) |
| 2 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,10) | |
| 3 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,10) |
| 4 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,10) |
| 5 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,10) |
| 6 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,10) |
| 7 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,10) |
| 8 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,10) |
| 9 | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,1) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,3,2) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,3) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,4) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,5) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,6) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,7) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,8) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,1,9) | =INDEX($A$1:$J$3,2,10) |
| Concatenating Words | ||||||||||
| =IF(A0=0, ” “,A0) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L1,” “,M1,” “,N1,” “,O1,” “,P1,” “,Q1,” “,R1,” “,S1,” “,T1,” “,U1) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L2,” “,M2,” “,N2,” “,O2,” “,P2,” “,Q2,” “,R2,” “,S2,” “,T2,” “,U2) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L4,” “,M3,” “,N3,” “,O3,” “,P3,” “,Q3,” “,R3,” “,S3,” “,T3,” “,U3) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L5,” “,M4,” “,N4,” “,O4,” “,P4,” “,Q4,” “,R4,” “,S4,” “,T4,” “,U4) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L5,” “,M5,” “,N5,” “,O5,” “,P5,” “,Q5,” “,R5,” “,S5,” “,T5,” “,U5) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L6,” “,M6,” “,N6,” “,O6,” “,P6,” “,Q6,” “,R6,” “,S6,” “,T6,” “,U6) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L7,” “,M7,” “,N7,” “,O7,” “,P7,” “,Q7,” “,R7,” “,S7,” “,T7,” “,U7) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L9,” “,M8,” “,N8,” “,O8,” “,P8,” “,Q8,” “,R8,” “,S8,” “,T8,” “,U8) | ||||||||||
| =CONCATENATE(L10,” “,M9,” “,N9,” “,O9,” “,P9,” “,Q9,” “,R9,” “,S9,” “,T9,” “,U9) | ||||||||||
if we previously had about 160 sentences. Now, we have 160 X 10 = 1600 sentences. Now you have to use these sentences to generate unique articles.
Phase 5 – Sentence Shuffling
Now, we actually have 4 X 10 versions of the same sentence among all the 1600 sentences. So, we now have to shuffle the sentences of the different versions and try to accommodate as many versions of the article as we can with less than 25% duplicate contents. For that, we have to shuffle sentences at a certain level. If we have about 40 sentences, then you can shuffle 10 versions (25% of 40 sentences). This is a simple math, but you can verify duplicate contents with many duplcaite % checking softwares available online and stop at one level when you are generating more than 25% duplcaite contents.
For that bring all the generated spinned sentences of same meaning in a separate tab and place them in a single row. And organize the various 4X10 versions of the sentences vertically in columns. After you have them in a separate tab, you are ready to shuffle the sentences using the below Shuffling Patterns inside the Concatenate formula to join the sentences of the articles..
Sentence Shuffling Patterns
For that, we use various shuffling patterns like:
- Straight,
- Diagonal shuffling,
- Reflecting diagonal shuffling,
- Alternate diagonal shuffling,
- Alternate reflecting diagonal shuffling,
- 2nd alternate diagonal shuffling,
- 2nd alternate reflecting diagonal shuffling, and so on.
Figure 1 – Straight Sentence Shuffling
Figure 2 – Diagonal Sentence Shuffling
Figure 3 – Reflecting Diagonal Sentence Shuffling
Figure 4 – Alternate Reflecting Diagonal Sentence Shuffling
For articles, prefer Reflecting Diagonal Sentence Shufflings, since it creates lesser duplicates than only Diagonal Sentence Shufflings. However, if the amount of sentences are few (in case of Snippet Contents), only Diagonal Sentence Shufflings are preferred. The alternation in shuffling (2nd, 3rd, 4th …) can go on up to 10 versions (5th Alternate) as was mentioned earlier. In ideal 40-50 sentence articles, going beyond 5th Alternate Diagonal Shuffling will mean duplicates more than 20%.
Phase-6 – Article Theme Versioning Output
We parse the contents into a separate excel file. And deliver it as the requirement of the client. Either as raw spreadsheet, text, html or xml versions. In this stage, we do: spell checking (again), replacing periods (.) with periods with a following space (. ) to eliminate spelling errors made by not using space after period, and then replacing the double/triple/quadruple spaces into single space, etc.
So here is the output you have:
Best Quality Content: 4 Unique versions manually rewritten articles
Better Quality Content: 130 spinned versions with less than 10% duplicate contents
Good Quality Content: 520 (130 X 4 versions) shuffled versions with less than 20% duplicate contents.
What About Snippet Contents
For directory submission and small link posting, you also need altered Snippet Contents that are less than 250 characters. However, since the amount of sentences are low, the amount of duplicate contents are more than 20%. However, you can get a huge number of Snippet Contents that are altered using the same methodology. You can create 5000+ versions of Snippet Contents from 10 Snippet Themes and no Snippet Content will be unique.
Samples
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This is an entry to Marketing Pilgrim’s 4th Annual SEM Scholarship contest.
Google To Test New Product Ads
Google’s paid search results continue to evolve beyond the traditional 25-character text headline, two-line snippet of information, and URL that we’re all so used to seeing. Both the Wall Street Journal and Google Blogoscoped have details of a new Google Product Ads beta test that will bring product images and price information to paid search [...]
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Google Launches Easily Embeddable Web Elements at I/O 2009
The only really exciting thing you missed by not attending Google’s I/O 2009 developer event was the chance to get a free Android phone–apparently Google can give them away after all! 
The annual event is not as glamorous as Google’s other conferences, but if you dream in binary, then the chance to mingle with 3,000 other developers and listen to 130+ speakers would have been a delight for you.
For the rest of us, Google did make three announcements today.
Perhaps the most interesting for us non-developer types, Google Web Elements allow you to incorporate Google products–like Maps, News, Friend Connect and YouTube–right onto your own website. They require no programming knowledge; all you need to do is use the customization wizard and Google automatically generates a snippet of text to paste on your page.
It works like this:
And looks like this:
The other two announcements may cause drowsiness…
- Java Language Support in App Engine: Today Google is launching general availability of Java language support in Google App Engine, providing all developers with an end-to-end Java language solution for building AJAX web applications.
- Android Developer Challenge 2: Today Google is announcing the second phase of the Android Developer Challenge, a Google-funded initiative to reward developers for building innovative and useful applications for the Android mobile platform.
