MarCom Professional

We get asked frequently about the value of XML sitemaps for SEO. Apparently many SEO firms are saying, as part of their sales pitches, that where a current SEO company hasn't created an automated sitemap they are damaging a company's potential for ranking.

I say this is total and complete rubbish.

The sitemaps feature in Webmaster Tools was created as a way to help sites identify all their pages to search engines and let search engines know when they add or modify content. They also enable search engines to flag errors in reaching specific pages. They have nothing to do with ranking - they merely serve to help with indexing, if your site needs a little help. More...

I've been looking at the Twitter feed of a fairly comprehensive list of UK SEOs this morning and I noticed something.

Of the most recent 140 tweets in the feed at the time I was looking (about 11:45am):

• 13 people plugged their own content
• 27 people plugged random sites such as newspapers, YouTube videos, funny pictures and other amusing "viral" content
• 25 recommended or retweeted content on the most popular SEO/Tech sites (e.g. SEO Moz, Techcrunch, Mashable, Sphinn, etc.)
• only 4 tweets recommended articles on their direct compeitors' blogs - 3 of those four were by the same Manchester SEO person (cheers, BTW, @Psychobel)

Now call me crazy, but there's a huge difference between the way linking takes place within search compared to social, and a different purpose. More...

This morning I was trying out the new SEO Moz linking tool. One thing that struck me when examining sites in a particularly competitive niche was the aggressive nature of the link building strategies employed by the highest-ranked sites. When I say aggressive, I mean that the sites in question are not just pursuing links from high quality, relevant sites - they're pursuing links anywhere they can possibly get them, no matter the quality. The sites from which the links come are often quite keyword dense, with content crafted solely for rankings, not users. These are, in many instances, sites with which our clients would not necessarily want to associate their brands or whose traffic wouldn't be interested in the services sold by the companies to which they link.Clearly this type of activity can and does work - often long-term - despite search engines (read: More...

Naturally, we've been watching the development of Google's real-time search with interest. Everybody's probably familiar by now with the scrolling box they're inserting into search results:

I was reading a bit about what people are speculating is behind the real time search algorithm and what Google decides to show. An article on eConsultancy got me raging.

The author suggests three things that may be factors in getting Tweets to show in real time search results that I can't imagine are true - because if they are, they demonstrate that Google has no clear understanding of social media and they contradict everything I tell clients when providing training on how to use social media correctly and effectively. More...

While doing research for a different blog post I spotted something I've never noticed before - Google is returning a map of the "trends" for "google china" at the bottom of the SERP for "google china." They're also offering people the option to add the widget to iGoogle.

Anyone else seen this before? Have I just not been looking very closely? (View the full size image)

One problem with the internet is that when it falls into the wrong hands, things can get messy. Say you have an altercation with a customer over the phone (or in person), if that person is unhappy enough, they may go online and detail their experience.

Take this exchange, for example. A web designer does some work for a former co-worker and is never paid for his efforts. Then he's asked to do some additional work under the premise "If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you."

Needless to say not only was the web designer unimpressed, he proceeded to explain why and detailed the exchange on his blog for the world to see - and for Google to index. More...

I was checking out my new followers and spotted this profile:

Enlarge image in a new window

It's not rocket science, but does anyone else spot the problem?

This begs the questions:

1. Do people really think that it's worth autogenerating Twitter accounts?
   
2. Do people think that having these autogenerated Twitter accounts tweeting garbage about software to autogenerate Twitter accounts at NOBODY is really worth the effort?
   
3. Do people really think that nobody will realise they're following and then immediately unfollowing? Especially when they follow nobody....

Long live Twitter spam. More...

Bet you liked that last blog post eh? Made loads of sense?  It's also probably not the first time you've seen a page of content that sounded that great. And linked out a billion times to somewhere else. Or was copied from your website. It's what bad people do (or used to do) to get good rankings - back when SEO wasn't about generating business, but instead was about generating rankings.

Sadly, people still use this tactic to build content for sites, whether it's content for their own sites or for a bunch of cookie cutter shell sites or splogs (spam blogs) for the purpose of linking. More...

We've been the target of one of the most badly gauged email marketing campaigns I've seen in a long while today. This morning the blog inbox had the following awaiting me in the "spam folder."

Enlarge image in a new window

There was a logo for the product and text telling me I'll be a beacon of light. That's nice. What a waste of 10 seconds.

Did it spark my interest? Not really. It sparked my laughter. I forwarded it on to a colleague as an example of some of the amusing spam we get. He laughed. Out of idle curiosity he clicked the link and laughed some more.  Then we got on with our day. More...

Last night (October 21st) saw the annual Manchester Blog Awards take place at Band on the Wall. The event was part of the Manchester Literature Festival and is always a good night.

If the turnout was any indication, blogging is indeed alive and well and taking on a range of subjects. It's my understanding that every year the list of nominations grows, and thus it is becoming increasingly difficult for the judges to choose shortlists for each category.  You can find the list of winners here.

What exactly is the appeal of blogging?

There is a lot of lip service paid to the idea that bloggers are wannabe journalists presenting inaccurate, badly researched and subjective news stories, but I would contend that the role of blogging is complimentary to that of good journalism, and that any decline in the newspaper is more down to a lack of good journalism and a reluctance to modernise (but that's another subject entirely). More...