SEO Expert, Anthony Yap

Having waited months for the final OK, Yahoo’s search platform is now officially powered by Bing.  Testing of the integration was ongoing for the last several months and search users saw results very similar to Bing’s.  Some search results still vary on Yahoo because they still add their own little touches to the search listings but for the most part, users will be seeing the same results.

For Bing, however, there are some changes to the way search results are listed depending on the term being searched.  For instance, doing a search for “safes” on Bing will yield a page consisting of several “sections” of search result listings where users can find relevant information on more specific information related to safes.  There is a news section, a buyers guide section, and a fireproof safes section.

So, what does this mean for search going forward?

First, when users perform a search on Google, Yahoo and Bing, they’re going to see two sets of results primarily.  There is less variety for top 10 listings to see and users will have to click on the next button for more.  It was good while it lasted to see different results and see how each ranked sites in their index.  This creates a more competitive environment where the big 3 would do their own thing to bring innovation to the search marketplace.  Now, we have less competition and I believe ultimately, less innovation going forward.

Second, the Bing-Yahoo deal sets up a showdown between Google and Bing for search market share.  Google is by far ahead of Bing and Yahoo but things can change if Microsoft makes the right moves.  With the growing use of mobile search, Microsoft could take advantage of it by negotiating its search engine use on mobile phones with cell phone providers and major handset manufacturers such as Apple’s iPhone.  If he default search engine was switched from Google (as is the case in many of the handsets now) to Bing, we could see more Bing converts in time to come if Microsoft manages to pull it off.  According to Chitika, that amounts to about 50% of mobile search.

Why is this significant? While mobile search is small at the moment, mobile search is gaining rapidly and is set to dominate in 5 years according to a research report by investment firm Morgan Stanley:

…we’re “now in the early innings” of mobile Internet development, which is growing faster than previous tech cycles, including the evolution of the desktop PC.

Third, for search engine optimization experts, the fewer the search engines, the less variety of major factors we have to focus on in order to rank well.  That doesn’t make the job any easier since there is a smaller margin for any error especially on guaranteed SEO programs which we offer to select clients.  Some of our clients have in fact experienced an increased level of web traffic because of better overall rankings on Bing as compared to Yahoo previously.  Since our SEO strategies are diverse in nature and intended to deliver balanced top 10 rankings across the 3 major search engines, this switch worked out really well for our clients with many of them dominating Google, Yahoo and Bing at present for their industry related keyword phrases.  In a later installment, I’ll offer some juicy details on what it takes to rank well for Google and Bing search so stay tuned.

No-follow links are those links which have the HTML attribute of “nofollow” and can be seen simply by right-clicking on a text link and selecting properties. If you are using Firefox, the little window will display several characteristics for the link. One of them is called Relation. If you see a nofollow after it instead of external, the link you just checked is a no-follow link.

This attribute has been pushed hard by Matt Cutts in an attempt to scare webmasters into conforming to Google’s standards. He wanted those webmasters who sold text links on their sites to add “nofollow” to all their paid links thereby preventing them from passing “link juice” or PageRank. Google would treat these links as untrusted links so no PageRank or anchor text value would be passed. Understandably, the use of paid links skews the Google ranking algorithm towards the site owners who have money to invest in site promotion versus those who don’t.

There has been much confusion with webmasters “guessing” at how the various major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live, and Ask) treat these sort of links. Many webmasters believed that the use of these links caused the links to literally be “not followed” or indexed. Now, for once and for all, Loren at Search Engine Journal has laid it to rest by getting the search engine’s nofollow treatment straight from the source – the search engines.

His findings are summarized well in a chart:

I find it interesting that Yahoo displays nofollow backlinks from sites in Yahoo Site Explorer but doesn’t count it towards search engine ranking. Live Search has not offered any information on this topic yet.

In my past article about Google bombing where I mentioned how current President George W. Bush ranked for the term “failure”, I discussed how this technique could be used to manipulate rankings and even hurt a competitor’s business or a person’s name. Matt Cutts, of Google, announced that they have changed the algorithm to reduce the effects of this problem. Reports have come in indicating that this tactic is no longer effective.
Since that time, web entrepreneurs have unnecessarily worried about this happening to them. While some businesses may have been affected by this malicious intent, for most businesses and individuals, the concern is largely unwarranted and over-exaggerated. To put things into perspective, link building is a tedious and time-consuming task. For someone to attempt to rank a site for a non-relevant term, it would have required lots of links. Links cost money (even time=money). The sheer number of links required to rank for generic terms would easily deter most people. That’s why link building is usually outsourced to SEO experts because companies understand the value of their time and focus instead on their core competencies.

I suspect a large part of the algorithm takes into account relevancy of keyword phrase to the site that it is pointing to.  Thus, a site selling electronics is not likely to rank well for sports equipment since none of the keywords and content on the entire site correspond in any way to the keyword being searched.
It is relieving though to know that this tactic cannot be used with much effectiveness anymore. Such malicious behavior online can seriously damage a person’s reputation. Companies getting bad publicity still have to deal with it and one of the ways is through effective online reputation management. One way is to “push” negative search results from showing up in the top 10 is to create separate sites built around the company getting the negative online publicity and rank these new sites separately. The effort should be combined with an effort to contain the problem and not ignore it hoping that it’ll go away. This can be accomplished by simply opening up a dialog with the other party to resolve any “sore” issues. Facing the problem and addressing any hurt caused will go a long way to establishing a company’s reputation and customer loyalty. Remember that it can take as little as one complaint to hurt a business.

A better more proactive approach rather than “complaints handling” is to manage your customers well.

Here are simple key points to take note on customer relationship management:

• Regularly ask for feedback. Sometimes, customers keep quiet about their dissatisfaction. These customers tend to be the ones that will stop doing business without telling you why and leave you wondering why the customer attrition rate is so high.
• Handle complaints when they occur immediately. Don’t hide under a rock and pray that it’ll disappear. Deal with it as soon as possible to avoid it escalating further. The sooner it’s handled, the less probable it’ll end up in some blog or forum post.
• Have a complaint handling procedure. Don’t leave anything to chance. Make sure everyone knows how to handle them and do training on it if you must.
• Get everyone (not just customer service) involved in the servicing of customers and clients in the business
• Track your customer complaints. Just like everything else in business, get it down to numbers and study the trend. If you’ve already put systems in place to handle it and it is still occurring at the same level, find out why. If it’s decreased, find out what aspect of your business made the difference.
• Maintain regular contact with your customer/client. Build rapport and trust with them so they’ll truly be honest with you.

Customer relationship management is really not rocket science as many books will lead you to believe. Often times, it’s just dealing with it face-to-face, heart-to-heart. Unfortunately, when businesses get big, they also get dumb. They become impersonal and faceless. Customers trying to resolve simple issues have to jump through hoops to get what they want.

Instead of thinking how much you can take from one customer, think about lifetime value. How many more transactions will this person have with you. How many friends and family will they send over as referrals. You’ll be on your way to a happier and more fulfilling business when you focus on taking care of the customer.