Archive for March, 2009
Monthly Blog Theme Contest, New User Ranks, MozPoint Madness and Upcoming YOUmoz Features
Posted by rebecca
Hiya folks! I’m pleased to announce some new features, functionality, and funtastic contests that we’re rolling out in order to make you lousy masses happy (wait, did I just type what I was thinking?). I’ve listed them below:
Top Ranked Users is Now Free of Rand’s Bearded Mug
Some of you may have noticed weird changes afoot on our Top Ranked Members list. If you check it out, you’ll notice some differences in who’s ranking highly:
Keep in mind that the stats on the Top Members page (such as mozpoints and rankings) are calculated every hour, so if you check your ranking twice in 30 minutes and are like, "No way, I just left a comment that got me 4 thumbs, so this count is inaccurate!", keep in mind that we don’t update in real time.
Speaking of mozpoints…
Extra MozPoints for YOUmoz Authors and Blog Promotions
From here on out, if you submit a YOUmoz entry and we publish it, you’ll get 10 mozpoints added to your total count. If your post gets promoted to the main blog, you’ll receive an additional 15 mozpoints, resulting in a total gain of 25 mozpoints (plus however many more thumbs up your post gets). Check out our MozPoints page if you’re unfamiliar with how they work and their benefit. For now, more mozpoints means you’ll get the nofollow lifted off your profile page links and that you can win a free month’s access of SEOmoz PRO. We’re also exploring other awesome mozpoint incentives for the future, so we’ll keep you updated!
Monthly YOUmoz Blog Theme Contest
Another new feature we’re announcing is our monthly YOUmoz blog theme contest. Each month we’ll announce a new blog theme for YOUmoz. Contributers don’t have to write a post centered on the theme–it’s not mandatory. However, if you do decide to participate in the contest and write a post tied to the theme and your post wins, you’ll receive a $50 Amazon.com gift card from us. Hooray for prizes! Posts will be judged by a variety of factors, so don’t think that spam thumbing will get you to win. We’ll likely factor in thumbs, community response and comments, and staff input to award a winner.
I encourage you all to brainstorm possible themes in the comments (or email me at rebecca -at- seomoz.org with suggestions), but in the meantime I’ve pulled April’s theme out of my arse: it’s reputation monitoring and management. If you’d like to participate, submit your theme-centric blog post to YOUmoz between April 1st and the 30th nd I’ll review/publish it (if appropriate–remember that we only accept original blog posts for publication–no dupe posts!). In the beginning of May I’ll announce the winner as well as the new theme for the month, and we’ll lather, rinse, repeat!
And finally, speaking of YOUmoz…
Upcoming YOUmoz Upgrades
Here is a list of some upgrades to YOUmoz we’re working on rolling out soon:
- Author bio sections. Fill out an author bio blurb and we’ll automatically generate it in the posts you submit.
- A "preview this post" function. Check your  handiwork before submitting it for review!
- Automated messaging. I’m currently pinging authors when their posts have been published or rejected, but soon this notification process will be automated.
If you have any other YOUmoz feature requests, shoot them over to me or to sitesupport -at- seomoz.org and we’ll see about adding them!
So there you have it–some cool new features and updates for all of you to drool over. As always, share your comments and feedback below, including future YOUmoz blog contest theme ideas. I’m looking forward to seeing how our first monthly contest goes–good luck, everyone!
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Yield Software Launches Search Marketing Suite
Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with the guys from Yield Software about their brand spankin’ new search marketing software that they’re launching today. It’s called the Yield Web Marketing Suite and it automates several tedious search marketing tasks into one.
There are 3 components to the suite:
- SEO - The software will scan your web page, run library of best practices, monitor what’s happening with search engines, and offer analysis. But don’t expect any sketchy recommendations. It’s only white hat here, folks.
- Paid Search - Yield offers automated bid management for the big three search engines: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. You can view all of your campaigns in a single place. The software also offers keyword optimization.
- Landing Page Optimization - You can use Yield to help create multivariate experiments. If it sounds intimidating, don’t freak out - there are step by step instructions to help. You can also have it automatically display the most successful version to increase conversions.
Yield offers month-to-month contracts that start at $129. The software is web-based so you don’t have to worry about downloading or installation.
Best part? You can try it free for 30 days. The Yield team gave me a demo and the software looks slick and user-friendly.
What do you think of Yield’s Web Marketing Suite? Demo the software and then head back here and give your review in the comments.
Webfluence: Move Over Big Three, SEOmoz Built a Better Search Engine
Posted by Danny Dover
Once every 100 years, a technology is developed that changes the way that people view their world. Today, I am fortunate enough to be able to introduce one such technology. internet, please make way for Webfluence, the world’s first and only search engine by SEOs for SEOs.
Background:
At SEOmoz, we have been trying to reverse engineer the search engines for years. Up until now, our biggest breakthrough had been the creation of Linkscape. Through studying the Internet’s link graph via our flagship product, we have been able to make several observations that have helped us write algorithms that are far superior to those used by modern day search engines.
This new software coupled with the easy availability of cloud computing has given us the ability to build a world class search engine. But don’t take our word for it, read the information below and try it out for yourself!
Key Features:
Never Link Build Again - Webfluence is the first search engine that enables any user to add any website to any search result. If you don’t see your website in a given search result, simply click "Add result" and provide us with information about your website.
Add any website to any search result
Your addition will instantly be added to our index and will propagate throughout our system so that your addition can be viewed globally.
Remove Your Competition - See a result that you don’t like? Simply hit the "remove" button and that result will be completely deleted from our index.
Remove any website from any search result
We are providing the power of the most sophisticated black hat techniques with the push of a button.
Technical Feats:
- 1 Trillion and 1 URLs - Our index is the biggest in the world. We accomplished this by utilizing our superior intellect (We Googled " * ") and our patented technology (See Steves below) to find the one page on the internet that our competition couldn’t. Our next planned milestone is 1 googol pages. Given the rapid explosion of copycat Digg/Facebook/YouTube sites, we expect this to happen on Tuesday of next week.
- Our Algorithm - In much the same way that PageRank ® was named after Google’s founder, Larry Page, Webfluence’s algorithm was named after our founder Rand Fishkin. The secret sauce behind RandRank ® is the use of time to help determine results. This is a metric that is generally overlooked by information retrieval experts.
- Recommended Results - Astute users may notice that on some queries, Webfluence automatically suggests pages that don’t seem to be related in any way to the user’s original query. This is the result of our manual reviewing staff. A long time ago a strange unidentified man in a tuxedo dropped a basket on our porch containing two twin boys. Eventually, the two youngsters, who we affectionately named Steve and Steve, grew up to become our manual review team. Now, whenever we need a page to return to a user, we just Ask Steves.
Our pride and joy, Steve and Steve (From left to right)
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Twitter Taps Ex-Google Lead Designer Doug Bowman as Creative Director
Recently, Visual Design Lead Doug Bowman left Google because he felt it was too constricting of an environment for a designer. I wasn’t surprised. Marissa Mayer holds a tight leash on all things Google design-wise. Managing a design effort that’s based on an old style serif font with primary colors and micromanaged by an executive with a programming background is probably not the dream of most cutting edge designers.
But don’t feel bad for Bowman. The hottest tech company out there right now has picked him up. Twitter has tapped Bowman to be their Creative Director.
When you think of Twitter and design, a few things come to mind:
- A very bubbly logo
- A bird
- Small birds attempting to lift a very infamous whale
It will be interesting to see where Bowman takes Twitter. There’s no doubt the company is evolving. With the inevitable monetization methods on the horizon, design will likely play a key role.
But design also has its role in simply updating Twitter as is. Twitter has tweaked the front page a lot since its inception, from testing a search box to a sidebar overhaul. The design efforts have been squarely under co-founder Biz Stone’s responsibilities.
Of course, Biz is a very busy dude right now, so hiring a Creative Director appears to be a wise delegation.
Google Starts a Venture Capitalist Fund
If you didn’t think Google had enough dominance in search, try this on for size: the search engine giant has started a venture capitalist fund. The areas they seek to invest are:
- Consumer Internet
- Software
- Clean-tech
- Bio-tech
- Health care
Google says more industries could be added in the future as their interest determines. Google says it will follow the best practices of “top-tier, financially focused venture capital firms” and place Googlers at the center of the effort.
Will Google be successful? I’m sure a lot of you have opinions on the matter. Let ‘em rip in the comments.
Related Reading:
Google Beats Wall Street Estimates for Q4 2008, Despite Profit Drop
Google’s Schmidt Talks Yahoo, Newspapers, ‘Don’t Be Evil’, and iPhone
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