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Yesterday I spent most of my morning listening to Grant Simmons’ brilliant webinar “The Ghosts of SEO Past,” which explored alternative SEO outreach strategies to paid linking. So it’s convenient that Google released a Disavow Links Tool this afternoon, and not a moment too soon as Bing Webmaster Tools launched this functionality back in June (Bing it on!).

This tool is hugely important in assisting webmasters clean up their backlink profile. As Grant mentioned this morning – clean up the bad stuff! Now instead of having to rely on the mercy of webmasters linking to your site and their willingness to update or remove links, you now have a secondary option to help clean up your backlink profile. But don’t go crazy disavowing all of the questionable links to your site, instead read The Search Agency’s advice below, and comment below with questions.

Some things to know about this tool:

• Only site owners can disavow links. If you have an agency or consultant handling your SEO strategies, you’ll have to change their level of access. Google restricted access in this way because webmasters should not go crazy disavowing links.
• Disavowing a link is just a suggestion, not a directive, to Google (akin to demoting Sitelinks in Google Webmaster Tools). However, Matt Cutts claims that it will typically be considered. It’s not a bad idea to continue reaching out to webmasters to have them remove unwanted links to your site, in addition to using this Disavow Links tool.
• It will take some time for Google to update the disavowals in their index. Google needs to re-crawl and re-index your site in order for the disavowals to be honored. Try using Fetch to have Googlebot recrawl your site quicker.
• This tool can be used by sites that did not receive an unnatural link warning. Google is constantly rolling out updates, so this is a good opportunity to look at your backlink profile and pre-emptively do some house cleaning. For further advice – read Steve McQuaide’s article “What to do about Google’s confusing link warnings.”

Additional takeaways:

• If you received an Unnatural Links warning but haven’t yet filed a reconsideration request, this Disavow tool will help make your case stronger. We recommend that you wait a few weeks for the disavowals to be recognized by Google, then submit the reconsideration request.
• Inbound links with brand-focused anchor text is one of the strongest signals of a natural link. Users should know exactly what kind of content they will land on when they click on a link to an external site. Misleading anchor text is one of the factors that lead to the unnatural link warnings in the first place.
• Don’t be afraid to link freely! Even as the web evolves to incorporate social media mentions and user experience signals, the search engines still view the internet as an interconnected web of documents. If someone links to you in a relevant way, don’t go crazy disavowing links because you’re afraid they may appear unnatural.

Cheers to taking steps toward a cleaner, spam-free web!

Special thanks to Steve McQuaide for his help with this article!Rich Text AreaToolbarBold (Ctrl + B)Italic (Ctrl + I)Strikethrough (Alt + Shift + D)Unordered list (Alt + Shift + U)Ordered list (Alt + Shift + O)Blockquote (Alt + Shift + Q)Align Left (Alt + Shift + L)Align Center (Alt + Shift + C)Align Right (Alt + Shift + R)Insert/edit link (Alt + Shift + A)Unlink (Alt + Shift + S)Insert More Tag (Alt + Shift + T)Toggle spellchecker (Alt + Shift + N)▼
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Yesterday I spent most of my morning listening to Grant Simmons’ brilliant webinar “The Ghosts of SEO Past,” which explored alternative SEO outreach strategies to paid linking. So it’s convenient that Google released a Disavow Links Tool this afternoon, and not a moment too soon as Bing Webmaster Tools launched this functionality back in June (Bing it on!).
This tool is hugely important in assisting webmasters clean up their backlink profile. As Grant mentioned this morning – clean up the bad stuff! Now instead of having to rely on the mercy of webmasters linking to your site and their willingness to update or remove links, you now have a secondary option to help clean up your backlink profile. But don’t go crazy disavowing all of the questionable links to your site, instead read The Search Agency’s advice below, and comment below with questions.

Some things to know about this tool:
Only site owners can disavow links. If you have an agency or consultant handling your SEO strategies, you’ll have to change their level of access. Google restricted access in this way because webmasters should not go crazy disavowing links.
Disavowing a link is just a suggestion, not a directive, to Google (akin to demoting Sitelinks in Google Webmaster Tools). However, Matt Cutts claims that it will typically be considered. It’s not a bad idea to continue reaching out to webmasters to have them remove unwanted links to your site, in addition to using this Disavow Links tool.
It will take some time for Google to update the disavowals in their index. Google needs to re-crawl and re-index your site in order for the disavowals to be honored. Try using Fetch to have Googlebot recrawl your site quicker.
This tool can be used by sites that did not receive an unnatural link warning. Google is constantly rolling out updates, so this is a good opportunity to look at your backlink profile and pre-emptively do some house cleaning. For further advice – read Steve McQuaide’s article “What to do about Google’s confusing link warnings.”

Additional takeaways:
If you received an Unnatural Links warning but haven’t yet filed a reconsideration request, this Disavow tool will help make your case stronger. We recommend that you wait a few weeks for the disavowals to be recognized by Google, then submit the reconsideration request.
Inbound links with brand-focused anchor text is one of the strongest signals of a natural link. Users should know exactly what kind of content they will land on when they click on a link to an external site. Misleading anchor text is one of the factors that lead to the unnatural link warnings in the first place.
Don’t be afraid to link freely! Even as the web evolves to incorporate social media mentions and user experience signals, the search engines still view the internet as an interconnected web of documents. If someone links to you in a relevant way, don’t go crazy disavowing links because you’re afraid they may appear unnatural.

Cheers to taking steps toward a cleaner, spam-free web!
Special thanks to Steve McQuaide for his help with this article!
Path:

On Thursday, May 31 2012, Google announced a significant change to their Google Product Search program. Below is a recap that summarizes the changes and potential impact to advertising efforts.

What is the change to Google Product Search and why is it being made?

On May 31, 2012, Google began to transition Google Product Search in the U.S. to a purely commercial model built on Product Listing Ads (PLA). The new product discovery experience is called Google Shopping.

Why is the change being made?

Google believes that having a commercial relationship with advertisers will encourage them to keep fresh and up to date product information. Higher quality data—whether it’s accurate prices, the latest offers or product availability—should mean better shopping results for users, which in turn should create higher quality traffic for advertisers.

How will the new Google Shopping work?

Ranking in Google Shopping, when the full transition is complete this fall, will be based on a combination of relevance and bid price–just like Product Listing Ads today. This will give merchants greater control over where their products appear on Google Shopping. Over time they will also have the opportunity to market special offers such as “30% off all refracting telescopes.”

How does the change impact search results?

Google will be experimenting with ad formats between now and the fall, when the rollout is expected to be complete. A traditional view of Google Product Search and Product Listing Ads:

An example of how Google Shopping Ads may appear:

What are the key dates?
Google will be experimenting with ad formats between now and the fall. There are a few key dates advertisers should be aware of as Google is providing the following incentives to aid in the transition:

• All advertisers who create Product Listing Ads by August 15, 2012 will automatically receive a monthly credit for 10% of their total Product Listing Ad spend through the end of 2012.
• Existing Google Product Search advertisers can receive $100 AdWords credit toward Product Listing Ads if they fill out a form before August 15, 2012.
• To get started, advertisers can visit www.google.com/ads/shopping.

What changes do advertisers need to make?

Advertisers will be required to set up Product Listing Ads within their AdWords accounts.

Questions?

Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section, find us on Facebook, or shoot us a tweet @thesearchagency

Great, so you have already set up your Google Merchant Center and have all your products listing on Google Product Search, and don’t forget you’ve also enabled Product Extensions and Listing Ads to your AdWords campaigns. PHEW! Between your organic, CSE and SEM product campaigns, it can be a lot to measure. With all the incoming data, you need an easy way to organize and track it.

How do you differentiate and track clicks coming from organic Google Product Search listings or your Product Listing Ads and Product Extensions?

Use the “adwords_redirect” in your Google Merchant Center Feed! If the “adwords_redirect” attribute is present, Google will use that URL in the context of your Product Ads (Product Listing Ads and Product Extensions Ads)

The “adwords_redirect” can help you differentiate the keyword and source. Let’s explore how each option works:

Keyword:  Identify the keyword that matched your ad by dynamically inserting it into the URL.

1. Input the product URL (FYI: it is the same as the link attribute in your Google Merchant Center Feed) and add kwd={keyword}

Example: http://www.yoursite.com/productname.html?kwd={keyword}

Just this month Google launched a new Value Track parameter ifpe:} and {ifpla:} that allows for more flexibility in creating tracking URLs that differentiate traffic from Product Extensions and Product Listing Ads. This replaces the previous {adtype} parameter.

• For Product Listing Ads use {ifpla:[value]} that replaces [value] with any text you prefer for Product Listing Ads

Product Listing Ad or Extension:  Differentiate traffic from a Product Listing Ad and a Product Extensions Ad

1. Determine the value you want to use to identify Product Extensions Ads

Example: You use “pe” to identify Product Listing ads, replace [value] with pe so it looks like {ifpe:pe}

1. Determine the value you want to use to identify Product Listing Ads and use in place of [value] for {ifpla:[value]}

Example: You use “pla” to identify Product Listing ads, replace [value] with pla so it looks like {ifpla:pla}

1. Input the product URL and add the ValueTrack parameters {ifpla} and {ifpe}

Example: http://www.yoursite.com/productname.html?source={ifpe:pe}{ifpla:pla}

When a visitor comes through from a PE ad the URL will be http://www.yoursite.com/productname.html?source=pe

When a visitor comes through from a PLA ad the URL will be http://www.yoursite.com/productname.html?source=pla

Other Google Product Tracking Helpful Hints :

• For Product Extensions with keywords you can use {keyword}
  • These are not applicable to PLA campaigns since they don’t utilize keywords. Google serves these ads based on the info from your Google Merchant Center Feed.
  • For Product Extensions you can also use the ValueTrack parameter {copy}
    • These are also not applicable to PLA campaigns since there is no ad text.
    • For PLAs you can use {adwords_producttargetid}
      • Visit http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2404255 to learn more.

For more on strategies and best practices for Google Product Listings and Product Extensions, be sure to download The Search Agency’s latest white paper, “Best Practices for E-Retailers: Driving ROI with Google Product Extension and Listing Ads.”

Tracking often has numerous workarounds, what are some alternatives and 3rd parties you’ve found?

Despite the sluggish economy, recent reports suggest that this year’s consistent growth in e-commerce spending may result in a recording breaking year in online holiday spending. As online retailers develop their holiday marketing strategies, it’s important to reflect on the key trends of 2011 that have impacted search and online marketing.

Last year’s e-commerce holiday sales (November-December 2010) reached an astounding $32.6 billion, representing a 12 percent increase year-over-year, but given the growth of online retail spending in 2011, don’t be surprised to see this number increase.

eMarketer and comScore both predict ecommerce sales to grow by 12 percent during the 2011 holiday season.

The research suggests we’re in for a record-breaking holiday season. Is your online marketing strategy up to date with the most important trends of 2011? Let’s take a closer look at five key trends that have changed the landscape of digital marketing this year, and discuss best practices to ensure you’re prepared for the upcoming holiday season.

1.       Mobile Commerce- Thanks to the consistent growth in mobile search queries and conversion rates, 2011 has proven to be an important year for mobile marketing. To date, clicks from mobile devices represent 14.2 percent of all Google search clicks—a metric that’s expected to jump to 17.3 percent during the holidays, according to Performics.

To avoiding missing out on mobile sales and searches, marketers should develop a mobile optimized site for the smaller smartphones screen with features that leverage location and touch-screen features.

• Separate mobile and desktop campaigns- Mobile-only campaigns enable marketers to create a unique budget and keyword bids for mobile-targeted keywords, and drive ROI.
• Mobile optimized site- Mobile users are looking for information while on the go and from a device that isn’t as easy to navigate as a traditional PC. Your website should be streamlined to these needs. Focus on the speed of your site and accessible, relevant content.

2.      Tablet Commerce- The rapid adaptation of tablet devices represents another important mobile marketing opportunity, as tablet users consistently spend more time and money on their devices than their smartphone counterparts. Evidence from Google also suggests that the conversion rate on tablets is higher or equal to the average conversion rate on PCs. Tablet owners also generate higher average order values and a lower cost-per-click:

• Tablet-optimized site- Keep in mind that tablet-optimized sites should provide faster load times and touchscreen friendly navigation.

3.       Panda Updates- Google’s Panda Updates have sparked an important conversation this year among SEOs about the definition of unique, quality content online. One area that’s been significantly impacted by Google’s Panda updates is eCommerce product descriptions.

• Create unique product descriptions- Google’s Panda Update penalizes duplicate content online, making it important for large reseller and retailer sites to focus on creating unique product descriptions and copy, rather than repurposing manufacturer descriptions. Reusing manufacturer descriptions can adversely affect your organic search results

4.       Landing Page Quality- Google recently announced that the relevance and quality of a landing page would carry more weight in calculating AdWords Quality Score. The goal of the change is to improve user experience with paid search ads. Thanks to these changes, higher quality landing pages will be ranked higher for lower cost-per-click bids.

• Focus on relevance- Marketers should focus on creating a landing page that’s relevant to the keywords you’re bidding on, and which provides for a positive customer experience.
• Strong call-to-action- Make sure your call-to-action is direct, visually big and above the fold.

5.       Product Ads – Product Listing Ads and Product Extensions- With increasingly more customers shopping online during the holiday season, it’s important to distinguish your site from the rest with Google’s Product Listings and Product Extensions.

• Product Extensions- With product extensions, your ad will appear with an image of your product along with the price of the product, allowing customers to browse your selection before clicking on your ad. Product Extensions provide your customers with more information about your product, while saving you money and generating highly qualified traffic.
• Product Listings - Product listing ads are shopping results, triggered when a user searches for your product, which display relevant information about your product from your Google Merchant Center Feed.

To learn more about these trends and how to improve your 2011 holiday online marketing strategy, download our new whitepaper:

Five Trends that Should Change Your Online Marketing Plans This Holiday Season

An example screenshot Google provided for the search query [office lava lamp] looks like:

Notice that this result, from Amazon.com, includes this extra information, saying that the product costs $14.99, is in stock, and has been rated about 3.5 stars (out of 5) from 17 reviews.

Google suggests two ways to provide them with this information: (1) using a data feed of the sort that some merchants employ with Google’s Product Search or (2) adding markup code directly to your website to indicate which data are prices, which are product reviews, and so forth.

Though this feature seems like it might facilitate the process of comparison shopping, hastening sales to the benefit of both the buyer and the seller, a cursory examination of the ‘rich snippet’ format suggests that this might not be the case.

Google recommends the Merchant Center feed as the preferred means of providing this data to ensure product prices, availability, and reviews will reflect the most current information. In the example above that Google provided, the information for Amazon.com’s rich snippet very likely came from such a data feed, since Amazon’s offerings appear in Google Product Search. However, Google’s screenshot said the price for an ‘office lava lamp’ was $14.99, but actually clicking on the link in their blog post in order to do a search for that query on Google brought up a rich snippet that said $19.99 (See below). Clicking through to Amazon’s website, the landing page said the product was $21.95 (plus taxes, shipping and handling, as applicable).

I guess the most appropriate question to ask here is ‘Cui bono?’ Who benefits from Google showing incorrect information to searchers? No one I can think of.

The other, less-recommended option for supplying information to rich snippets is to markup the information on your website to make it easier for Google’s spiders to determine which bits of your pages represent what information. (Of course, it also allows everyone else in the world - including your competitors – to do the same. How handy it would be for your major competitor to go through the laborious process of indicating on every product page which items were in stock and how much each cost, just so that you could go hire The Search Agency to spider their site on a weekly basis and report to you any big price markups, price markdowns, or major inventory problems they were having.)

Of course, retailers have a third option, which is to simply leave Google to their own devices to get the information they want. This approach may prove to be the hardest option to tolerate of all. Google claims that the data feed option means that rich snippet information will be “updated quickly”, while if you mark up data on your site “it may take a few weeks after providing data for rich snippets to be shown”. But leaving Google to scrape a non-marked-up site might mean rich snippets that are even more out-of-date than that.

In a search I performed on August 18, 2010 for the queries [prime minister of australia] and [australia prime minister], Google.com and Google.com.au (Google’s Australian website) claimed the Prime Minister was Kevin Rudd. Of course, Mr. Rudd was replaced in late June by Julia Gillard. Using the ‘Feedback’ link, I alerted both Googles that this information was incorrect. But now, months into Ms. Gillard’s term, they still claim that the Prime Minster is Kevin Rudd, as this recent screenshot below shows:

Google’s ‘Also try’ and ‘Searches related to’ features suggest searching for “kevin rudd”, “john howard” and even “new zealand prime minister”, but not Australia’s actual prime minister, Julia Gillard. So, if Google chooses to include ‘rich’ information in your snippets without your assistance, don’t be surprised if the information they provide is horribly out-of-date and your feedback goes unanswered. [UPDATE: Sometime after this post was published, barely 5 months in her term in office, Google.com and Google.com.au finally admitted that Ms. Gillard is the prime minister of Australia.]

Perhaps Google should include a timestamp on the information they show. So, when they say that Australia’s Prime Minister is Kevin Rudd, they could include a comment immediately after to the effect of “(info last updated 15 June 2010)”, or whenever it was that they gathered that data. That way, when a searcher sees your lava lamp listed for $14.99 on Google, but $21.95 on your website, they’ll know that the problem is Google’s fault and not yours.

Or perhaps Google could simply give merchants the option to insist that rich snippets are not shown for their own listings at all. In my opinion, that would be the best option of all.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfpdBe-jiWU

So yes, this is not new. Cashback has been around for a while, but the overt link between cashback and searching is interesting; it certainly raises a number of issues. There are those who would deem this almost inappropriate, a ‘bribery’ of users. Claims may be made that this will lead to users who would otherwise proceed immediately to the end product’s website and convert, may now navigate through the cashback service instead, thus hijacking the sale. But this ignores the fact that this is not a new phenomenon. Cashback has indeed been around for a while (a lot of affiliate networks would be a lot poorer if it were not for the sales derived from this medium); and it will remain.

As indeed it should; it is a great way of rewarding customers for their choice of your service. Be it in the form of airline miles, credit card cashback, or in-store points, these are proven tools for retaining and growing a client base. For hard-pressed consumers who need to make their dollars go further, the growth of cashback is a blessing. And when it comes to search, does it not seem fair to reward users for their choice of engine?

In terms of what this means for the search engine battlefield, this appears to be a good move from Bing. Although the actual conversion cost for a user to shift engines is nothing, the effort it takes to familiarise oneself with a new search engine is beyond most. Previous articles have mentioned that users will simply be unwilling to change engines, despite the relevancy of its results.  Hopefully this is exactly the kind of carrot that users need to try something new.

In terms of advertisers concerned about ‘sales hijacking’, this can to some extent be addressed through good tracking. By analysing the cross-search engine landscape, and monitoring user behaviour prior to purchase, advertisers will be able to see if users are indeed making a real switch to Bing.

Have you binged yet? If so, you probably have come across Bing Shopping. Bing Shopping is the merger of two Microsoft shopping channels: Live Search cashback and MSN Shopping. While MSN Shopping has been around for some time, Live Search cashback was launched in 2008 only after Microsoft had acquired Jellyfish. So much for comparison shopping being an endangered species.

If you are unfamilar with the Live Search/Bing cashback model, Microsoft has provided a nice overview of the program.

But Bing Shopping is more than just a combination of two platforms. There are a couple of new, very interesting features:

• Integration in organic results: Much like Google does with Google Base, products show up across search results.  Even better, Bing uses pictures to draw attention to these listings:

• User and expert reviews from various sources provide insights which go way beyond a normal product description. Pick the feature most important to you and you will get a list of specific reviews:

• Bing Shopping offers both a cost-per-click (CPC) model and a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) model.

Bing Shopping combines the previous listings from MSN Shopping (CPC) and Live Search cashback (CPA). If you have been feeding your products to either one of them, your products will already be listed with Bing. If you were feeding to both engines, then ONLY your cashback products are listed on Bing Shopping. Your cashback feed will prevent the MSN feed from being processed completely, even if it contains different products. According to a Microsoft statement at the Internet Retailer 2009 conference, they are currently working on a solution to enable a CPA and a CPC feed at the same time.

Asked about the future of ciao.com, the answer was very vague. So we can keep guessing how the future CPC model for the Bing platform will look like. In Europe however, the various Ciao sites have replaced MSN Shopping.

Traditional Comparison Shopping management uses a weeding out approach. Products are submitted to CSE’s and monitored for their performance. Low or non-converting products are removed – which increases the performance over time. But do you have the money and time to find your performers this way?

If not, we suggest a build-up approach. And that is where Google Product Search comes into play. Here is how it works:

1. Submit all your products to Google Product Search. Make sure that you track clicks and conversions on a product level.
2. Sit and wait – gather click and conversion data from your Google Product Search listings for about a month.
3. Analyze the data and find your top performers:
   • Pay attention to the product price: A product may have converted well but if it sells for $9.99 only it will be hard to make it profitable.
   • Pay attention to the number of clicks: A product might have generated good revenue but with a relatively high number of clicks. Check with the rate cards of the CSE’s to see if you could still make a profit out of that product.
   • Be careful with popular keywords. For example if you are selling accessories for iPod’s you might attract a lot of traffic which is not necessarily converting.
4. Choose any number of products from your top performers to be submitted to CPC-based CSE’s. Don’t be afraid to just submit a handful of products to start with. Remember, we are trying to make money from day one on.
5. Monitor closely the performance of the paid engines. Even though a small number of products reduces the risk of non-performers you might need to weed out some of the products. What works with one engine does not necessarily work with another.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 every two to four weeks in order to continuously increase your revenues and your profit.

Amazon Product Ads is a cost-per-click based program which allows you to easily list your products in the Amazon network. A potential client can click through to your website and the transaction is finalized on your website – giving you all the opportunities of cross-selling.

Amazon Product Ads work like a traditional Comparison Shopping Engine. So if you are currently submitting to a CSE your set up will be quick and easy:

1. You submit your product catalog to Amazon. As with all other CSE’s the more product attributes you submit the better will be your placement and the consumers shopping experience.
2. Customers are searching the Amazon network and will see your ad. As soon as they click on it they will be taken directly to your website.
3. Amazon charges you a CPC based on your product category and your bid. There is no minimum spend and no monthly fee.
4. Customers can purchase products from your website. You have full control over the customer experience.

Your products will be shown in different areas of the Amazon network. The placements are continuously optimized to improve your results. Amazon accepts products in the following categories: Baby, Computer, Electronics, Health and Personal Care, Home and Garden, Office Products, Sports and Outdoors, Tools and Home Improvement and Toys. The following categories are restricted and need special approval: Apparel, Shoes, Jewelry and Watches.

Reach over 44 million consumers each month with Amazon Product Ads