The following is the guest article by Dan Almond, at Piranha Internet, a  Preston SEO Company. If you want an awesome guest article like this, join our guest blogging platform MyBlogGuest.com

Since 2004 Google has been in widespread use, and there are now generations of people who have grown up using Google on a daily basis. These are the same people that have grown up in an age of technology, using mobile phones and specifically SMS text messaging. It has long been argued that text messaging has negatively impacted people’s ability to spell and use grammar correctly, particularly in formal writing.

Google is similarly positioned to exert such negative influence and I’ll attempt to show how it could be doing using an example from the world of retail.

I was actually working for a client in the retail sector who sells clothing when I came across some shocking examples of the use, or rather misuse, of the apostrophe within meta titles and descriptions belonging to some of the major UK retailers.

Sorry if you find this next section a little patronising, but I’m going to assume that everyone reading this has had their understanding of grammar impaired by the continued use of search engines and mobile phones.

Which is Correct:

{Mens Clothing}

or

{Men’s Clothing}

or

{Mens’ Clothing}

?

I’ll get the first one out of the way immediately, there is no such word as “mens”. “Men” is already a plural and so does not need pluralising in this way. This also makes “mens’…” inaccurate. The correct plural possessive (as the clothing ‘belongs’ to men) is therefore “men’s”.

Now let’s see which of the top 7 retailers got this one right in their meta title and description:

As we can see, all of the retailers have used the grammatically incorrect version, although interestingly Republic has chosen to optimise for both “mens” and “men’s”.

Womens Clothing, Women’s Clothing or Womens’ Clothing?

The rule for “women” is exactly the same as for “men” above. The correct use is therefore “women’s clothing”.

Again let’s see which of the top 7 ranking retailers got this one correct in their meta title and description:

Many more retailers seem to have got this correct, the reason for which I shall return to later.

Ladies Clothing, Lady’s Clothing, Ladies’ Clothing?

This is probably the most tricky one of the three examples I’ve provided. “Ladies” refers to more than one ‘lady’, whilst “lady’s clothing” would refer to one particular lady’s clothing. The correct choice is “ladies’ clothing” with the apostrophe after the ‘s’ being used to signify possession (the clothing ‘belongs’ to the ladies).

Not many of the major retailers seem to be targeting this keyword, but those that were all seemed to have opted for “ladies…” and not “ladies’…”

Why Do Google Not Auto-correct?

This confused me somewhat. Normally if you spell something incorrectly Google will either automatically correct your spelling, or at least suggest what it thinks you might mean. Enter “mens clothing” however and… nothing. Not a sausage.

Why is this?

Do Google not know that “mens” is not a word? Do they not have a good grasp of grammar? It’s difficult to believe that this is the case, though I’m at pains to offer an alternative explanation. This is made all the more confusing when you search for “womens clothing” and Google asks if you meant “women’s clothing” – why do it for ‘womens’ and not ‘mens’!?

Why Are Retailers Getting it Wrong?

The first thing to establish here is, are retailers actually getting it wrong, or are they purposefully using incorrect constructions in order to target the most popular search terms? According to Adwords, “mens clothing” is searched for 40,500 times monthly (locally in the UK, using exact match), compared to just 73 times for “men’s clothing”. That is a staggering statistic.

The SERPs for “mens clothing” and “men’s clothing” are different too, so Google are definitely not ignoring the apostrophe in this instance. From this perspective you can completely understand why retailers are using incorrect spellings within their meta titles. Some retailers, such as Republic even use both “mens” and “men’s”. One can only assume that the misspellings within the meta descriptions represent a lack of SEO knowledge (meta descriptions aren’t used for rankings), or are an attempt to maintain consistency (I’m probably being generous here).

I guess that retailers, or at least the people who do their SEO, have to decide whether it is more important to be correct, or to use the construction that most people use. I suspect that the latter option will win on most occasions when sales are at stake, at least when the difference in search volumes between the two is so pronounced. I just really thought that as an industry, we’d got beyond the whole incorrect spelling for SEO thing.

Chicken or Egg?

So who is to blame? Do retailers spell incorrectly deliberately because customers do? Do customers spell incorrectly because they’ve been badly educated by Google and the retailers? I suspect that both are true to an extent. It’s a chicken and egg situation and the only party involved that can actually fix this, is Google.

If they autocorrected searches for “mens clothing” to “men’s clothing”, and their autocomplete also selected the correct variant, people would begin to search in this way and retailers would have to optimise for the correct spelling. You can already see evidence of this above, with many more retailers using the grammatically correct “women’s clothing”, quite probably because Google suggests that particular spelling.

Does Search Illiteracy Equal Illiteracy?

So far I’ve spoken only of the influence upon people’s search behaviour, but it’s possible that repeated incorrect grammar use online could spread beyond search engines and into general language use. The aforementioned links between text message speak and a decline in literacy are often disputed. Indeed, renowned linguist David Crystal has categorically stated that he believes any such link is a myth.

I would argue that there is a clear distinction between txt spk and standard language use though, whereas the distinction between “mens” and “men’s” is less clear. Children and impressionable adults are much more likely to believe that “mens” is acceptable language use, and to use it themselves, than they are likely to think that “gr8” is fine to use in formal writing. People often learn by imitation, and Google along with retailers and SEOs, are not setting the best possible example.

So come on Google, you can do better.

Dan Almond studied English at The University of Liverpool and works at Piranha Internet, a  Preston SEO Company. He regularly blogs about all things SEO and social media on the Piranha Internet blog.

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by quinn.anya

No related posts.

It is amazing how many new things we may discover in very familiar services by just experimenting… I’ve been using Google for ages and I am quite familiar with its advanced operators but I just discovered a new one a couple of week ago.

Actually, I’ve been aware of it for quite some time but I thought it was supported only by Blog Search (and it never occurred to me to use it anyway) until one of our very awesome moderators shared it worked great in Google as well.

The operator is INPOSTAUTHOR:”Author Name” and it allows to filter search results by the author name. Try! [inpostauthor:"ann smarty"]

Now, if you come to think of it, there may be some great ways to take the full advantage of it!

Search For Guest Blogging Opportunities!

If you guest post (and if you are following me for some time, I may have already persuaded you to start guest blogging), this operator could turn a life saver for finding new guest posting opportunities.

Let’s create some smart search queries:

• inpostauthor:”guest author” {your topic here}
• inpostauthor:”guest post” {your topic here}

Let’s try to broaden the search by including each of the slight variation above:

inpostauthor:”guest post” OR inpostauthor:”guest author”{your topic here}

Tons of new guest posting opportunities you would never be able to find otherwise! Some of them are not even labeled as “guest post” in any way – but they are!

Now, try playing with search sidebar looking for the most recent guest posts (some of those blogs may have just started accepting guest posts, so you’ll be one of the first featured!)

Follow Any Author

Remember that sweet little tool that lets you create daily email alerts of new search results indexed within the past 24 hours? All you need to is to search for your favorite author (let it be me… what? I am the owner of this blog: I can do whatever I want here )

[inpostauthor:"ann smarty"]

Click “Show more options” to the right and filter the results to see those indexed within past 24 hours. Now grab the resulting URL and create a new free alert in the TrackEngine.

Alternatively, you can use Google Blog Search, filter results and:

• Subscribe to RSS to track your favorite author throughout all blogs he contribute to;
• Subscribe to email alerts of your favorite author’s new articles;

Note: You may see some content scrapers now and then which you can filter out with help of [-site:scraper.com]:

inpostauthor:”ann smarty” -site:scraper1.com -site:scraper2.com -site:scraper3.com

3. Aggregate Your Articles in One Place

If you do a lot of guest posts (and I hope you do) or contribute to multiple blogs on a regular basis, you may want to collect your posts in one place. The above Google Blog Search RSS feed would work like a charm for that!

Note: Obviously, it will only pull posts where you contribute from your own author account.

All you need to is to grab RSS link (framed in yellow in the above screenshot) and use either (or both of these plugins):

• RSS Import to embed your posts in your blog sidebar;
• FeedList to embed your posts in any page

Ann Smarty’s Articles:

Hope it will turn useful!

Note: I just want to apologize to all my readers that I don’t update my blog too often. The thing is that this blog is too special for me. I only post here if I really have something really useful to say. So stay tuned!

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Pink Sherbet Photography

Related posts:

1. How to Ghost-Google: Searching Google without Google to Know about You
2. My Google’s Addiction : Sorry Guys, but I Do Love Google Search
3. The Ethics of Guest Posting – Am I Wrong?

I was contacted by the representative of the most popular (I guess) European information portal and news aggregator – Wikio.

The good news is that SEOsmarty.com was ranked #10 among most popular blogs in the SEO category according to Wikio.

The weird news is that SEJ is not ranked in top 20 at all but I like the company nevertheless:

Ranking made by Wikio

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There can be several reasons why a search marketing professional would want to be “ghost-googling” (i.e. searching Google without Google to know you are searching it):

• He/She may want to see absolutely “fair” results (not influenced by his/her recorded browsing preferences, territory, etc);
• He/She may want to be served “non-targeted” Google ads;
• He/She may want the competitors to be unaware they are being watched (have you ever noticed any [site:yoursite.com] type of Google referrals? This is quite enough to suspect someone is after you).

So here are a few steps to take to ensure some preferred level of Google privacy:

[Btw, I do see the irony behind trying to make our sites visible to Google while getting invisible ourselves ]

1. Use Google Privacy Greasemonkey Scripts:

GooglePrivacy is a cool Greasemonkey script that is claimed to work the following way:

• It replaces all tracking cookies with faked data.
• It disables the script sending Google your browsing records:

Normally each link on a google search page has an onmousedown script that sends a request to their servers telling them what you clicked on, it’s an invasion of privacy and it slows down your connection.

Remove Google re-directs: I’ve listed three Greasemonkey scripts turning Google tracking re-directs within SERPs into direct link for privacy and usability purposes.

2. Configure Your FireFox Browser:

Try accessing this page to see how your browser is passing your referrer string. You can configure FireFox to hide your referrer string (hat tip to Distilled) by following these easy steps:

• In the Firefox address bar, type about:config
• In the “Filter” box, type “referer“
• Double click the line named ‘network.http.sendRefererHeader‘
• In the dialog box, enter 0 and click “OK“
• Click referer checking page to check that Firefox isn’t passing your referer string (make sure that the first line is blank).

3. Disable Google Web History

Obviously you are well aware of the fact that unless you opt out, Google will be saving your search and browsing history to “improve the search quality” and show you personalized results.

Web History uses the information from your web history or other information you provide us to improve your Google search experience, such as improving the quality of your search results and providing recommendations. In addition to enabling the Web History functionality, the information we collect when you use Web History may be shared among all of our services in order to provide you with a seamless experience and to improve the quality of our services.

You are free to pause the feature as well as remove items already stored.

Obviously, you can turn off personalization of search results by simply signing out of Google account.

4. Configure or Uninstall Google Toolbar

That’s never been a secret that Google is using its official toolbar statistics:

Any time you use the Google Toolbar to contact Google, such as by sending a search query to Google, the Toolbar sends standard, limited information including your machine’s IP address and one or more cookies. This data is retained in Google’s server logs and protected according to our general Privacy Policy.

There’s almost no definitive way to tell how much this influences the search results returned to you personally but to be on the safe side, you may want to block this leak too.

You are given the option to disable the user stats via Google Toolbar settings:

1. Go the Toolbar’s settings ( icon).
2. (Firefox) click the Search tab.
3. Deselect the “Send usage statistics to Google” checkbox.
4. Click Save.

Alternatively, you can just uninstall the toolbar. Here are a few addons for you to perform its most useful features:

1. SearchStatus (which displays Google PageRank), though it has been slower than the official toolbar;
2. And this post of mine lists two alternative addons that offer quick access to Google services (like Gmail, image search, etc).

5. Anything Else?

Did I miss anything? Add your tips in the comments!

Post imageby striatic

Related posts:

1. Searching Google… by Author!
2. My Google’s Addiction : Sorry Guys, but I Do Love Google Search
3. New Study by Reliable-SEO: Google Personalized Search

Personalized search is one of the controversial Google’s babies: first, it might sound great that you are supposed to be given just what you want (on the other hand, it is still questionable the machine can know better what I am up to); secondly, personalized search has become the real headache for SEOs: ranking fluctuations pose many problems for reporting and overall work evaluations.

Reliable SEO has recently released a report summering the results of the personalized search research involving data provided by volunteers (USA only).

The eight-page report contains plenty of useful information on:

• Rankings flux rate;
• Elements of personalization;
• What affects the rankings;
• How to adapting the SEO plan.

The report concludes:

At this point there may be just enough evidence to warrant further investigation but not enough to totally abandon rankings as an indicator in your SEO programs. If anything, there is evidence that makes a top ranking (1-4) more valuable than ever. These positions were shown to be the strongest with the least amount of movement due to re-ranking.

Post image: personalized cupcakes

Related posts:

1. My Google’s Addiction : Sorry Guys, but I Do Love Google Search
2. Search in Search: Raising Panic and What Else Google Has to Say
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Recently it occurred to me that I not only use Google search to find information. Google is able to instantly answer many more of my daily questions and fulfill some of my daily tasks. I feel that Google search is making me addicted to it and at the same time lazy.

I admit that due to my profession my search habits are different from other non-SEM surfers. But love it or hate it Google is doing a tremendously great job at finding what you are actually looking for. And below I listed only few examples of how it can help me beside actually searching:

1. I no more mind my spelling:

2. I find it more natural to go to a site through Google SERPs than through browser navigation bar (and I am in no way alone: Google’s third fastest rising search trend across the universe was facebook – and I bet most people searching for it just wanted to get to the site):

3. I search any site (even the one owned by myself) with Google because I am more familiar with Google search options and settings and can search more effectively there:

4. I use Google instead of a dictionary (note: I blog in a foreign language, so I often need an outside help to put things together). How do I do that? That’s easy: I try searching Google for both phrases and compare the number of results (the more people use the phrase, the more correct it appears to be):

5. Very often I even don’t have to leave Google’s results page to find the answer:

6. Most often I don’t have to rack my brain to brainstorm for a word related topics:

Image source: threeminds.organic.com

Related posts:

1. Search in Search: Raising Panic and What Else Google Has to Say
2. New Study by Reliable-SEO: Google Personalized Search
3. 4 Advanced Search Commands For Smart Webmasters

I mainly search for images online when I need a web design inspiration or if I want to decorate a post of mine. Some recent image search engines and search engine applications seem really impressive to me. They offer a wide variety of interfaces, filtering and sorting options that I personally enjoy playing with.

So the big question (like with other search types) is: what should the image search look like? The image search giants (Google images, Yahoo images and even Flickr) represent rather a poor example of image search usability (to my mind). Luckily we have a number of good examples (still none of them is perfect):

1. Picitup offers really interesting filtering options (that overall work):

• show faces;
• show landscapes;
• show products;
• set color preferences.

2. Flickr based Tag Browser will show you related tags to your search term giving you more ideas to explore:

3. Picsearch advanced search provides a variety of filtering options:

• by file size;
• color (black and white, color or both);
• image type (animated or not).

4. Imagery is Google image based tool that basically does the same as Google but in a much more easy-to-use way: it offers advanced search options at the same page, each image size and dimensions, and image source page (when hovered over).

5. Exalead (known for integrating facial recognition technology) allows for a number of useful filtering options (and besides it shows the exact number of available results for each of them):

• searching for faces;
• grayscale or color;
• wallpapers;
• layout;
• file types.

6. Snap.com offers a really great interface showing the list of images to the left and the image preview and characteristics to the right. The search is enhanced by quick filtering options letting you choose the color option (black and white or color) and image size.

7. Oskope visual search integrates data from a number of services: Yahoo image search, Flickr, Fotolia. It has a number of presentation options (grid, stack, pile, list, and graph) and scale grade enhancing your search experience. It also shows each image information (date and username for Flickr, size and dimensions for Yahoo image search) and source link when hovered over.

To cut the long story short here is a summing up table (the criteria are based solely on my personal opinion):

Post Image: Not the End of this Story

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2. My Google’s Addiction : Sorry Guys, but I Do Love Google Search
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This post is [again] courtesy of my fellow Mozzer – Rishil

A couple of weeks ago – we published Search Within a Search – How This Could Mean Bad News for Your Site. It seems that brands and marketers have realized how teleportation can harm a business brand, not just in organic, but paid search too. The idea has been picked up in popular press – the NY times managed to get some interesting quotes from various brand owners and specialists.

Pinny Gniwisch, vice president for marketing of Ice.com, would protest the use of the site in site search bar if it appeared for the sites he is representing “This is essentially giving the customer a way to leave a search for your site”. It seems that Amazon.com has already protested and Google has honored their wish to get rid of the SiS box under their brand results.

But what the interesting point that we picked up from the article was Google’s hint that not only is the process not directly manageable by a brand, but if it de-activates the feature – there are slim chances of getting it functioning again:

According to a Google spokeswoman, the company has honored such requests from “a couple” of unnamed businesses. These companies, however, may not be able to reverse their decisions.

“So we ask them to try it out and see if they want it removed,” the spokeswoman said. “We think it could be a really useful feature.” (quote from the NY article, emphasis ours).

Right – we are not sure what this spokes person does at Google – but we are sure this statement was an official one – and hence raises some questions:

• Will Google allow SiS to be controlled via webmaster tools or any other method? (seems unlikely).
• Which other sites have requested the SiS to be taken off, and what is the easiest way to do so at present? ( I would guess webmaster tools)
• Why can’t the feature be switched back on? (Is it automated and needs manual intervention to get rid off?)
• Is this one of the strangest innovations that G has introduced? It seems so – other features that G introduced had clear control by site publishers – at least in turning off and on – in the example of the site links.

It’s not that the SiS hasn’t got great uses – but I would guess instead of switching the feature off – a set of guide lines on how it works, what to do to switch it off would be useful.

Ultimately it’s wrong to show competing PPC on search results on a brand name – if that would be switched off – then we see less of a battle by brands on accepting it.

Related posts:

1. My Google’s Addiction : Sorry Guys, but I Do Love Google Search
2. Search Within a Search – How This Could Mean Bad News for Your Site
3. New Study by Reliable-SEO: Google Personalized Search

This post is courtesy of my fellow Mozzer – Rishil

Last week Google revealed search within search (officially called teleportation) although it’s come as a surprise to quite a few people, its been in the test mode since 2006. The purpose is to enhance user experience and the “likelihood of finding the exact page they are looking for”. Great stuff.

However…

This may have issues for those who heavily invest in their brand by protecting them via trademarks etc. How? Well observe the scenario below:

• I want to book a holiday, and in particular I want to go to Florida, and I want to go in March.
• I have seen huge amounts of advertising, both off line and online about great offers that Virgin Holidays have planned for March.
• I am from the “google generation” and believe in using Google for any site that I want to get to.

So off I go to Google to search for “Virgin Holidays“:

Notice the highlighted Results:

1. The exact term “Virgin Holidays” I used.
2. Right hand – PPC by Virgin – only their result as the key phrase is trademarked.
3. Notice the site link Florida which is actually my main intention.
4. The search in search box – where I have typed in my intended long tail “Florida March”.

All the above points 1-3 are great results for a brand.

No. 4 is the worry – but before I take you there – see where I would have landed had I clicked on the first result – the main site URL:

The green highlighted section is the main target area, where I would refine my search – with the exact dates and requirements.

Great for converting business.

What if I had clicked on the site link “Florida“? :

Once again – great content, and excellent for conversion.

But what if I had used the Search in Search?

Using my target long tail “Florida March”:

This is what I see:

Yellow Highlights -

• First three results – not relevant.
• Fourth result – too old.

Now here’s the crux, apart from seeing non relevant results, I also see Paid Adverts on the right hand side (green highlights), none of which are Virgin Holidays. The highlighted PPC listings are actually eye catching because of the use of target keywords and the use of keywords such as “bargains, Cheap” etc.

I was tempted to click on those results and scout around to see if they would indeed secure me a better offer.

For a brand owner, this means that using the Site in Site journey, I as a consumer, was put off the Brands subsequent results, while simultaneously turned on to competitors.

I don’t want to issue a series of points to counter or balance this activity – just wanted to look at it from a consumer journey in relation to a Brand and the effect the teleportation effect may have on the Brands conversion.

Related posts:

1. Search in Search: Raising Panic and What Else Google Has to Say
2. My Google’s Addiction : Sorry Guys, but I Do Love Google Search
3. 4 Advanced Search Commands For Smart Webmasters

I have just posted another article at Search Engine Journal describing a way to monitor Google keyword positions over time.

Tracking SERPs is an important SEO technique that helps:

• to get a deeper understanding of how search engines work;
• to keep an eye on both your new and established competitors;
• to discover new SEO tactics and to learn their effectiveness.

Here is a short outline of the post to give you an idea:

Post image: North Narrabeen Rock Pool Before Dawn

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2. Use Gmail Search for Keyword Research and Inspiration
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