My Many Words for Snow – speaking of profanity. The IR geeks are generally a more reserved bunch (or so I thought) until now. Seriously… it’s pretty funny. Read it. Takes 30 seconds.

Overcoming The SEO Challenges Of Huge Online Commerce Sites – ok sure, Eric said the dreaded ‘PR sculpting’ but at least it has a new spin (lol). All in all, still a worthy edition for those in ecom.

Relevance: Good for SEO, Good for YOU – Virginia has a nice little road map for relevance. I enjoyed this one as it was anti-geeky. Taking ‘relevance’ back to the thought level… Nice.

Google Fails 5th Grade Math Test – and hey, what’s a week without poking some fun at Googly? And who better than Michael VanDemar to take them to task?

A concise list of SEO black hat tactics – while Michael may not luv me no more, (something to do with the SEOBS blog hehe) I still do, so here’s his nearly weekly addition into the mix. For the record, I have mate in BH, just not a fan of it myself.

“Inkbait”: A Case Study In Linkability – Deb does some link bait deconstruction and (as always) gives us some good take-aways. Seriously, she’s more of a content strategists at times, not merely a link builder.

50 Ways To Lose Your Link – speaking of links, Julie had a list (yup, I hate ‘em, but this one ain’t too bad) of the many ways that outreach can go wrong.

Using the hReview Microformat for your Review Pages – did I metion microformats were important? Richard seems to be getting right into them over the last while… Bookmark this one as it is a’ coming!

Why it’s time to take the SEO industry seriously – ok, sure, the content is a little light. But how often will we see a major (non SEO) website actually not crapping on our collective heads? Print it out. Frame it.

Master Baiters Taking The Bait – since we’re all sh*ts and giggles this week, I thought I’d add Milt’s post that asks the pertinent question. Why to SEO Baiters always find a hungry fish?

The Benefits of a Targeted YouTube Distribution Strategy  - a new addition to the newsletter are the guys at Reel SEO. Be sure to grab their feed and bookmark the site. We’ll be looking at VSEO more and more this year (part of a good universal search strategy right?).

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Content identification expansion

Automatic completion of fragments of text

Multiple index based information retrieval system

Providing Posts to Discussion Threads in Response to a Search Query

Microsoft

Pseudo-anchor text extraction for vertical search

Recommendation system that identifies a valuable user action by mining data supplied by a plurality of users to find a correlation that suggests one or more actions for notification

Fast on-line learning of transformed hidden Markov models

Searching questions based on topic and focus

Clustering question search results based on topic and focus

Yahoo

Identifying related searches in a database search system

Classifying documents using implicit feedback and query patterns

Building a research document based on implicit/explicit actions

Can Too Much Keyword Density Be Interpreted as Boiler Plate Text? – Barry picked up on an interesting thread over at GWC on how high density might actually get one tagged for boilerplate ( a spam signal). Read it. Remember it. M’kay?

No Feed, No Problem – Google Reader Now Tracks (Mostly) Any Website Change – is an interesting update to Reader where one can now create a feed from websites without feeds. For those in the tin foil dept. this almost seems to be part of the ‘need for speed’ as it offers Google new avenues for discovery and page changes beyond traditional crawling.

Archive Dive with SEO Experts — SEM Synergy Extras – whaaaat? A ‘Dave Bait’ sighting? Sure is. Virginia rounds up some of the more interesting interviews on SEM Synergy from the last while including…. you guessed it, yours truly.

7 Do’s & Don’ts For Working With A Technical SEO During A Redesign – is a good round up of advice for ensuring the left hand knows what the right hand is doing during a redesign. It can’t be stressed enough that you involve the SEO team right from the outset with a redevelopment or even a new site.

The Algorithm Chasers – Kim dropped into SEL with this great post that had me worried when I first read the titles (being the algo geek that I am). My fear subsided once I realized that I fully agreed with here assertions. Have a read and let me know what YOU think.

Google Adds Click-to-Call Phone Numbers – it seems every year we hear, “this is the year for Mobile” and while it has never manifested, we still keep hearing it. Will this be the year for mobile and SEO? No idea. But it’s always a good idea to keep up with it…so I thought this was an interesting development.

Google May Be Crawling AJAX Now – How To Best Take Advantage Of It – a while back we heard that Google is getting better at java-script and now it seems they’re getting into Ajax. This VERY comprehensive post from Vanessa is a great look at the most recent developments.

Why Mahalo (and Other Content Scrapers) Render Google’s Spam Team Flaccid – everyone’s favourite ranting mad man, or at least one of my favoutites, Aaron Wall, was at it again. And it wasn’t a new target, oh no, he’s once more going off on the (one time?) enemy of SEO’s, Jason and the Malhalo crew. Ahhh… I love the smell of a good rant in the morning!

Three new myths SEOs tell you – Michael is back this week and hits a few not so common Myths that are running around the SEO community of late. For the record, I shall always be a SEO Geek and won’t be ‘evolving’ into another form of internet marketing any time soon.

What SEO’s Need to Know About Page Speed – While I do believe that we should get too worked about the so-called Page Load Speed Signal, it can never be a bad thing to keep an eye on from a usability perspective, never mind SEO. As such, this post on SEP is a worthy addition to this week’s edition.

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Interactive financial charting and related news correlation

Microsoft

Search Engine Enhancement using mined implicit links

Yahoo

User Sensitive PageRank

Federated community search

Suggesting keywords based on mobile specific attributes

Lord of the SEO Friendly CMS – Jon was highlighting some of the issues with, and his thoughts on the perfect, content management system. This is a huge consideration as it can handcuff one into working from behind. A good addition to this week’s edition.

Handling Blank Review Pages for Better Traffic and Conversion – I enjoyed this one as it is one of the little tactics that can maximize the granular elements of an SEO program. We want to have every advantage possible, so keep this one in the arsenal.

The Great Grandma Content Caper – ok, the title alone as enough to get this one into the newsletter, but the content delivers as well. Michael’s advice for content publishers dealing with scrapers/crap-hatters, is spot on as always.

Cleaning up the SEO Cesspool – while I appreciate Allan’s ‘rant-ish’ title, he’s fighting the age old battle of search ‘standards/ethics’ which history has proven to be a losing one. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth putting out there again… (the comments are great as well).

Tracking Your SEO Success With Charts – Aaron dropped into SEL with some pretty pictures and good ideas. As a data geek, I am always drawn to the precioussss… I mean, purdy graphs and such.

After The Hack, Should I Still Trust Google & The Cloud With My Data? – After Google was attacked Danny gave pause to muse over the security of ‘the cloud’. I particularly enjoyed this one and it is a fairly important editorial. Read it if ye haven’t already.

Build Links with Better Answers – as we’re always looking for new angles for link building, it was nice to see this post on SEJ from Jennifer. It’s actually an old tactic (answering a burning question as link bait) but she does a great job of laying out the process. Nice work Jen.

2010: The Year of the Little Guy – Julie Joyce was on a road tour this week (from the SEO chicas) and stopped into Search Cowboys… I personally work a lot with SMEs which made this anthem to the little guy ever so enjoyable! Kickin’ arse and takin’ ranks!

Getting Links for a Poker site is easier than you think – We also had a Lyndon alert last week (don’t hear much from him anymore). I’d read this one if you’re having problems with the creative process in content development. There’s always more than one way to skin a cat!

2010 Marketing Predictions & Resolutions – this is a round up on Search Engine Land of the many predictions/resolutions made by search bloggers going into 2k10. Some interesting theories abound, that’s for sure.

Detecting and dealing with duplicate content – we had a guest poster on the Trail last week, (Mark Thompson) and he put out a pretty good post. He looks at methods and tools for dealing with dupes and even scrapers. While I wouldn’t worry about every page, pillar content and target pages are best to keep clean. Give it a read!

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Methods and systems for output of search results

Yahoo

Predictions of a degree of relevance between query re-writes and a search query

Link optimization

System and method for indexing web content using click-through features

7 Ways to Maximize Internal Linking Value – is a good post over on Seer Interactive that looked at some simple, but not so common, considerations for the linker looking for new ideas. It’s worth keeping on yer list of link goodiness.

Shifting Search Marketing Strategy – Virginia Nussey’s head was spinning with the recent Google Social Search offering and might be reconsidering the value of social in search (we had a good discussion about this in the SEO Dojo chat session last week – fun stuff).

Microformats, the future looks semantic – speaking of our chat sessions, another we discussed last week was microformats. If you’re not already on the semantic bandwagon (with microformats/RDFa), then I suggest you do. Richard’s post is a good start.

Microformats: What, How, and Why – and since we’re on the topic, friend of the FireHorse, Steven Bradley (aka Van Gogh) was also writing about MFs/RDFa as well.

Using Blogger for SEO – Michael Martinez made a great case for using Blogger and why it is an important consideration for your ongoing SEO programs (and training). My fav had to be in the reasons; so we don’t “look stupid when people ask for help specifically with blogger”. Nice…

Fixing 404 frsutrations – from the gang at the Bing Blog we had a nice post on dealing with 404 issues. I have to say the Bing blog is doing some good webmaster material since the re-branding. Kudos to them for that

How Much Work Should You Giveaway in a SEO Proposal – Shimon Sandler takes on one of the older and more important conversations in the space. It really is a balancing act to give enough for clarity, without giving away the farm. For the record, I am a fairly stingy fella’ in that regard.

Custom Sections Directory for Google News – is a new feature released last week in Google news. It’s kinda interesting and after playing around some I created a SEO Geeks section (see here and follow wontcha?). As with all things Google, at the end of the day any value will be locked to adoption.

Borrowing from PPC – Peter gives us some sound advice on using PPC (among other tools including the Wonder Wheel) to tighten up your KW research and identify buying trends.

Google Dashboard – the creepy folks at Google ruffled a few feathers when they released a one-stop dashboard for all of their control over you…erm… I mean services you’re using. Me? No worries, I recently wrote about why Google should creep you out. (Here’s some coverage on SEJ)

Keywords That Click – Barry dropped a guest post at SEP on one of my fav conversations. How do you conceptualize SEO? Is it keywords or concepts? He does a good job of fighting the good fight (I am a concept guy myself).

Google Adds “Page Preview” To Search Options – was another interesting development over at Google… as always… we shall watch for adoption before passing judgement.

Bing vs Google: A Comparison Study – Lee decided to do a little comparison shopping with G v B. This one is kinda funny as he contacted me when doing the (limited) research. I was a bit taken aback realizing that I haven’t used Bing enough. Although this post does seem to lean in the direction of that being a wise decision.

The Disproportionate Value of Deep Links – throws out a theory of how internal PageRank and related factors might be working over at Google. Eric (Enge) makes a good case which somewhat bears out algorithmically. If I were to add anything to the hypothesis, it would be to also consider temporal factors (from decay to QDF).

Search Stuff

Using only experts for recommendations - Geeking with Greg

Does the Semantic Web Need Ontologies? – HayStack BLog

Good Interaction Design II: Just Ask  - IR Gupf

NLP as a study of representations – LP Blog

How Search Engines May Rank User Generated Content – SEO by the Sea

Yahoo Confirms Real-Time Search Test – Search Engine Land

Google Makes Friend Connect “Friendlier” with New Features – Search Engine Journal

Google Updates Friend Connect to Match Up Content, Ads with Uses Interests – SEW

Twitter Friday: 20 Twitter Lists for the SEO Industry – SE Optimise

Twitter Finally Begins Adding Search Relevancy Features – SEJ

Australia’s Google Maps Easter Egg – Search Engine Roundtable

http://www.shagunvatsa.com/local-search-interview-with-david-mihm – Shagunvasta

Guide To FREE Google Local Business Centre Listings – Hobo SEO

Google Targets Spammers With New Local Business Listing Guidelines – Search Engine Land

Google Maps and PO Boxes – When can they be used? – Mike Blumenthal

New Google Local Listing Guidelines – Small Business SEM

Bulk verification in Google Local   - Blog Storm

Business Owners: Are You Sabotaging Your Own Local Listings? – Search Engine Land

Local Business Center – Verify Your List – Google

Google Commerce Search - Google

Web Analytics Q & A With Avinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski Part 2 – Google

NEW Tools from SEJ – we all know that Ann is the queen of tools, now the gang at Search Engine Journal and Raven SEO have hooked up to offering a wide range of googiness over on SEJ. Here’s the official announcement, and there’s a post on using some of them over here.

5 Useful Yahoo! Pipes to Monitor Your Brand – SEJ

Semantic web firefox extensions – Science for SEO

8 Utilities to Track Keyword Rankings – SEO Scoop

SEM Rush Review – Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis – Just me and my

Research & Build Links with Followtopia Search Engine – SEJ

Trakkboard – Google Analytics for Desktop – Saad Kamal

Google Analytics adds advanced filters in content reports – Blog Storm

This engine searches all the concert band websites that are registered at The Concert Band Portal.

BookAse.com is an online price comparison search engine for the major online bookstores worldwide.

Followtopia search indexes the entire internet (well, as far as we can crawl), not just a few blogs. It is an excellent SEO tool to help you find sites without nofollow.

Semantic Web Search is a search engine for the Semantic Web – Alt Search Engines

iBotanika is an online community, knowledge base, and marketing platform related to the botanical world.

Google

Improving the ranking of news articles

Preferential ranking of code search results

Microsoft

Social Network Powered query refinement and recommendations

Ranking parser for a natural language processing system

Yahoo

Ranking documents through contextual shortcuts

Microsoft

Ranking model adaptation for searching

Vision-based document segmentation

Search Stuff

Here are some of the search geekiness that caught our eye for this edition;

Google Webmaster Tools Patent on Crawl Rates – SEO by the Sea

A relevance rank for communication – Geeking with Greg

Google is sharpening it’s squares – the Noisy Channel

Social Search

These stories are mostly related to the emerging world of Social Searching;

Twitter Talking With Google, Microsoft About Data Sharing – Search Engine Watch

Goby: A Search Engine to Cure Your Boredom – Mashable

Twitter Search Refines Trend Searches To Give You More Real-Time Results, – TechCrunch

Local SEO

The happenings from the world of local/geo search;

Google Geo Targeting Some UK Sites to France?, Search Engine Roundtable

Everything you need to know about Google local business center – Think Seer

Be wary of tracking numbers in local search – Search Engine Land

Exploring Local Google Maps – The Brand

Videos

All the latest videos for SEO peeps that we thought were interesting;

Google Faculty Summit 2009: Google Wave – Google Tech Talks

Search Round Up - Barry (via Search Engine Roundtable)

Which is better and HTML site map or an SML one? – Matt Cutts

Un-crawled URLs in search results – Matt’s got a white board

Un-crawled URLs and Yellow Pages – Jim Stewart (some commentary on MCs post)

Weapons

If it’s tools you’re after, here’s what we found for you this week;

Foxy SEO; a quick way to access multiple tools – Search Engine Journal

Google keyword tool v KW external – SEO Gadget

Monitor Any Page with Website Monitor Google Gadget – Search Engine Journal

SOSG Alerts

Here we have alll kinds of geekiness for the seriously obsessed (outside of the Big 3);

NewsDots – nifty visual approach to news search/recommendations

Whoozy – a new people search engine.

Nu2Me provides a central location for links from UsedEverywhere.com, Kijiji.ca and Craigslist.ca!

UsedEverywhere.com was founded in 2003 with the vision that an effective, free, online marketplace for the sale of used goods would reduce landfill content and benefit the environment.

Pillbox was developed to aid in the identification of unknown solid dosage pharmaceuticals.

Google -

Zero-minute virus and spam detection

Search result ranking based on trust

Detecting spam documents in a phrase based information retrieval system

Microsoft -

Quality of web search results using a game

Dynamic search with implicit user intention mining

Ranking search results using biased click distance

Yahoo -

System for classifying a search query

Hybrid term and document-based indexing for search query resolution

System and method for improving online search engine results