Brokerblogger

"The Dark Side" Of Vertical Aggregator Creep

The chorus line of vertical aggregators below is still jumping for joy (click to see), because all the marketers (clients of SEO consultants) who want their individual web sites to be on that first SERP can't easily and inexpensively compete with them.  Why, because most vertical aggregator web sites have large amounts of quality content, many inbound high quality links, and deep pockets of owners who continuously update and add quality content.  These things enable them to block out most of the individual company web sites from the "organic top 10" listings on the 1st SERP.

"Vertical Aggregator Creep" to me, many SEO's, and many B2B & B2C online marketers, is more annoying than "Ad Creep".  I have read in forums where an SEO said that their clients have to compete in both organic and PPC arenas for good ranking.  In fact, these "unfair advantage" competitors with huge content & huge financial resources, that are sometimes known as directory aggregators, cause the SEO to spend more time, and be more aggressive (maybe even ""Black Hat SEO") in their SEO tactics.  These extra costs are passed on to the client who is also forced to invest in PPC just to get on the first SERP.

Vertical Aggregator Creep

Since the cost of entry into the online vertical aggregator business is low compared to offline, more and more vertical aggregator web sites are appearing ("creeping up") at the TOP of the SERP's.  Click on the "BUSINESS" chorus line animated image to see their happy dance. 

Have you noticed that when you do a search for a product or service like "golf courses in Connecticut", Google gives you only 2 specific golf course sites, and 8 vertical aggregator-information sites on the first page (as of 9/30/05)?  Now, some online search users may like this, especially if they don't have a specific golf course in mind.  However, some aggregator sites don't allow direct links to their listing results at all, or its a paid privilege.  On the SERP I just mentioned is #3 = WorldGolf.com, which shows Richter Park Golf Course for Danbury, CT. with a link to "Course Comments", but none to the actual course web site.  However Richter Park G.C. does have a web site with much more information (I didn't link to it as you can't "back-button" to come back here!).  TheGolfCourses.net at SERP #5 shows Richter Park for Danbury with a link to their own limited information vs. the actual web site"s complete information.

Before You "Sign Online", Read OnGuard Online

The seller doesn't have to hand you a pen in an online sale, but their "fine print" that is burried in layers of "sub-links" on the seller's web pages can have reperocussions for buyers.

ClickZ brought to my attention:  "FTC Gets Out Word on Cyber-Crime.  Their link to the FTC's new consumer protection site OnGuardOnline.gov made me do further research.

The FTC.gov web site has a section on "Advertising Practices" in which it says it " protects consumers from deceptive and unsubstantiated advertising. Its law enforcement activities focus on (among other things):

General advertising at the national and regional level, particularly advertising making objective claims that are difficult for consumers to evaluate."   Wow! That encompasses a lot of advertising, as I see it.

What Color Is Your SEO-SEM Parachute?

"Click to Animate" the computer screen, and you will see what your computer may say to you if you decide to become a Consultant for SEO-SEM!  Of course, long hours and hard work are required if you really want to be successful at anything in this world.

The trick is to figure out what it is that you love to do, so that it won't seem like work.  Since 1970, the book "What Color Is Your Parachute" has helped people find out what career best suits them. 

A recent post on on The SEO Blog entitled "Searching for a Career - Eight Skills For Entry Into SEM" is an excellent overview that is done with "O'HUG" Communication (Open, Honest, Upfront, and Good - clear and comprehensive).  It is also very timely as I have somewhat recently posted myself about "SEO-SEM's Emerging Growth Revolution".

NO "Corporate Speak" Generated Media, Please!

If you "click to open" this image of two dogs, you will see a "dog eat dog" animation.  The big grey dog represents the seller-advertisers with their traditional "corporate speak", paid media, and the smaller red dog represents the buyer-consumer-users with their new found "open mouth" power of CGM based on the principles of WOMMA.

Hopefully, CGM is the answer to Gary Ruskin's (of Commercial Alert) question:  "If the Consumer is Really King, Why Do Marketers Keep Bombarding Him?."  But, I have seen others in business that believe in "The end justifies the means", and "All is fair in love, war, and business".  Both, of which, are false in my opinion.  However, when "Fear of Loss" kicks in, that is when improper rationalization can happen to some sellers and even buyers.  The facts in this post (via The Blog Herald) on the Blog Relations Blog entitled "PR Blog Relations Survey, the threat posed by blogs" could instill a "Fear of Loss" in the hearts of a few unethical sellers, rather than them looking at "The Opportunity".   

Search Engine Disclosure (What's Important?)

The cartoon above when "clicked on" will show the computer user's eyes going from left to right in trying to absorb all the information.  An Enquiro study has shown how most of us scan the screen.  Their "Golden Triangle" provides evidence of this top down, left to right eye scanning.  But, what is totally comprehended-understood by the majority of non-web savy users as they quickly scan?  Evidently, Google believes that it needs to disclose-explain what "Googlebombing" means in a top right PPC ad for the keywords "miserable failure".  I'm not knocking it in and of itself, but is that the most important thing to disclose?      

6/17/06 UPDATE:  Google did away with the PPC ad and just relies on that blog post entitled "Googlebombing 'failure'".  This post comes up about #3 on Google when you search for "miserable failure google" without quotes, but not for just "miserable failure".

Right above that same PPC ad is the column title tag "Sponsored Links", that is NOT YET a hyperlink to a disclosure-explanation page like Yahoo has for their title tag "Sponsor Results"?  I find it comical, though, that the exact same search in Yahoo renders a top left link for "Also try: miserable failure google".  I don't think this is competitor bashing, do you?

6/17/06 UPDATE:  Yahoo has changed their "Also try:" wording to "Also try: google.com miserable failure", and that Google blog post explanation comes up at about #2 poition in the organic results.  I guess Google did not want to pay for a PPC ad on Yahoo to provide the explanation there?

Relevant Advertising-Marketing Update

The photo above (click to enlarge) gives a better perspective of the larger amount of content that was indexed from 1905 to the eventual 16 large volumes of books in 2004 for the national, industrial B2B buyer's guide, and the thick local Yellow Pages book for B2C consumers.  Of course, there were many Yellow Pages books all over the U.S..  But, what the photo doesn't show are the 19.2 billion pages indexed, that Yahoo recently claimed.

Of course, a search engine's search algorithm is designed to cut through all that potential clutter, and present the most relevant results first in an online search. But, what is relevant to one person is not relevant to another or, potentially, even that same person at a different time.

"Yellow Pages" History Clarification

Thanks to Larry Small, Director of Research at the Yellow Pages Association, I now have a photo of what the "First Directory" looked like in 1878! 

This is interesting as the About.com page on The History of the Yellow Pages says that "The very first time the term yellow pages was used was in 1883. A printer working on a regular telephone directory ran out of white paper and used yellow paper instead."  In 1886 Reuben H. Donnelley created the first official yellow pages directory.

History of Relevant Advertising

Be sure to "Click On Photo To Enlarge" to better see the date of the 1st Edition reproduction of "The Buyers' Guide" that I marketed off-line and online advertising in for many years.  Of course, when my independent contractor, publisher's rep firm represented that publisher, the print version was much larger as seen partially on the right.  The "Yellow Pages" got its start in 1886 by Reuben H. Donnelly.  Yahoo's online only history started in 1995, but their "human editor" directory search engine has a lot in common with both other publications when it comes to relevance.

"Relevance" is defined in Wikipedia by three keywords:  "pertinent", "connected", and "applicable".  The antonym of relevant is irrelevant.  A good example of an irrelevant ad is in the above "Yellow Pages" link to an About.com page with a Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 Flash Ad.  You may not be able to see the same ad, so I'll describe the situation;  I accidentally rolled my cursor over the "Roll over to replay" text, and it took me to another flash ad that had an "X" box to cancel. But, instead, that deceptive icon took me to Microsoft's landing page to sell me.  This annoyed me as my intent in going to that "Yellow Pages" About.com page was not to buy accounting software.  The ad was totally unrelated to the matter being considered! 

"GAS $5.00 GAL." = "FUD"

After watching Fox & Friends this morning, I decided to do a follow up to my "Reason Gal Prices Top $3.00 per Gallon" post, as buyers & sellers are definitely being affected!

As I watched the TV screen, across the bottom in large text was "GAS $5.00 GAL."(or something very similar) with no explanation until later in the show.  Now, isn't dealing with all the suffering of "back to back" hurricanes enough without being given misleading information to read?  Surely there was "shock value" in that banner text content.  But, I believe that Fox News was SENSATIONALIZING some incompletely presented information.  They should have said, in slightly smaller text: "Gas Possibly Going To $5.00 Gal." 

I'm not picking on them alone for this, as most of the traditional broadcast media use sensationalism to get our attention and build ratings.  It is very effective in the short term until the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth comes out.  Then they risk the viewer feeling tricked by being initially misled with incomplete information!