For those of you who do not know what a directory scraper is, I’d say in my most basic terms, a directory scraper is a “search engine” that looks to be returning real search results.  However, behind the scenes they are actually just searching a major search engine, Google for example, and then presenting the results as their own.  Most typically these sites monetize their sites by embedding PPC ads in the displayed page.

I’ve not really seen any major SEO advantage to being listed in these sites. Typically a user has to search to see your results. Since search engine spiders do not submit random search terms to these sites, the odds of getting a backlink from a site like this are slim.

Take for example my SEO business. In the past I’ve played with ranking it for “Richmond SEO firm”. You can search Google for that term and see the rankings. Now look at the results of searching a directory scraper site for Richmond SEO firm.  At the time of this writing the results were identical.

Personally, I use Google for nearly all of my non-work searching.  I would not have even found the site I linked to if not for doing some backlink analysis for a client.

I guess then that my main conclusion is that these types of directory scrapers have marginal SEO value at best for link building. Probably not worth the effort to pursue, but maybe a fun way to test things.

• Google
• Yahoo
• Live

Technical interpretations abound, including:

• SEOmoz
• Search Engine Land
• Yoast (with a Wordpress plugin already)

The SEOmoz and Search Engine Land articles do an excellent job of talking about the canonical URL tag.  The immediate thoughts that come to my mind are:

1. Will the engines later use these tags for some other purpose, like they did when the switched the intention of nofollow from generally indicating a level of distrust to force feeding the idea of nofollowing paid links.
2. Will they shadier SEO’s work on a way to use canonical URL tags to their advantage? On this, I can say with certainty they are already postulating.

Do you think they will succeed?

Actually, I thought about ending the post there, just to be like some university psych professor trying to quiz you.  You know, like the old urban myth of the student who answered the Psych question “Why?” with “Why not?” and got an A on the test. I’ve yet to see proof.

But really, why not? Surely the value of submitting to the majority of directories out there is minimal to practically non-existent. But can you tell me with certainty that some piece of link-bait, no matter how craftily put together will generate back links?  Sure it may crash your server if the digg-aholics come in droves, but can you tell me definitively that you will get links for all the hassle?

So tell me… is the ROI on a directory submission that much lower than a wish and a prayer for links in a blog post? I’ve yet to see proof.

You go through the effort of being an active member of a social network, you make friends, you vote on content, comment on content, and submit content (even your own sometime), all in the name of driving up your own site traffic.  I realize that those in to social networks for the sake of being members would argue that this is not the reason to be a member, but the fact remains that webmasters in the game to make a living are approaching social networks with at least a thought of this in their minds. In the end though, if you get a regular flow of traffic or even sporadic spikes of traffic from Digg, Stumbleupon, Mixx, or any other social network, have you really accomplished anything?

Instant Payoff from Social Network Traffic?

It is widely accepted that Digg traffic does not convert at a level worth talking about.  One could likely extend this belief to other non-niche social networks with a reasonable level of confidence.  We all know… the traffic is not targeted, the social network users do not like to be gamed, many of the social networkers hit your page and are gone in a flash — those that stick around don’t follow through on offers.

With this in mind, one can easily buy the Makak Media premise that social networks can be a huge waste of time if you don’t watch your time. I fall in to that trap on occasion.

Building a Brand

However, I believe that a well thought out social media plan is a great step to take when considering how much time to put in to social marketing. And I view it much like TV advertising. TV advertising rarely has an immediate quantifiable payoff with regards to sales. However, TV ads generate brand awareness, word of mouth brand knowledge and ultimately leads to getting customers in the door or looking at products on shelves. At that point, it is up to the advertiser to close the sale.

In terms of websites, social network traffic is largely filling a branding role.  Creating buzz and/or word of mouth (aka links), and brand awareness (aka RSS subscriptions) for your site can go a long way towards fulfilling that purpose. Why?

Search traffic is the ultimate in targeted traffic.  Consumers search for something, they find your site, they come to your site, they convert (or you learn what is weak about your conversion process). And it is apparent to anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes reading about SEO that links are a significant factor in search rankings. Build your brand, enjoy the links and RSS subscriptions, and enjoy the long term benefits of social networks.

It is the Sum of All Parts

Summing it up in my mind then, seeking out social network traffic for the sake of traffic surely is a waste of time if you are looking to make money online. Seeking out social network traffic for the sake of fulfilling a larger SEO goal is a very valid pursuit. Set some goals, set a plan (including some restraints for your time), set the plan in to motion, and adjust as new opportunities arise.

The idea behind Mahalo is to merge the human edited directory aspect of DMOZ with a world class search engine to provide a better search engine that is as free of spam as possible, maybe a Wikipedia type site (only with editors who know what they are talking about). Editors are expected to be paid, maybe so users won’t run into the inherent flaws of having volunteer editors like DMOZ (months of wait time for possibly never even being reviewed and the occasional back door review payments). Search results will have a human edited page mixed with real time search results. They obviously are just starting.

I did a quick few searches to test the outcomes. The first, a term that I was sure they would not have hand edited — crock pot rice (don’t laugh too much, I have a site that gets very steady if not spectacular traffic from this search term). As expected Mahalo had not hand edited this term. What was not expected was the return of a link to their Condaleeza Rice page. I’m pretty sure that Condie is not known for her cooking recipes, so it appears they just did a simple “OR” on the terms to find related results. My rising fourth grader daughter will be learning that trick this summer when I get her coding some PHP for me.

So, I followed that up with the spamdaddy term of all time, viagra. Surely that term had been hand edited to minimize spam. Wrong! No hand edited results, but there was a nice link to their Rush Limbaugh results page. Now that page was hand edited, and I can see why I may like Mahalo for some things.

After my little trip there today, I can say with 100 percent certainty, that it is possible I might visit Mahalo at some point to perform a search. I can see the value in that.

For mobile SEO, you kind of flip the page layout that we are generally used to. Content higher on the viewing page, links more towards the bottom. I can buy this — you want the mobile searcher to see your content above the fold on their smaller screens. Another item that intrigued me is including possibly a few jump links at the top of the content to allow a viewer to jump to important components of your page (e.g., navigation, related content, etc). Of course CSS is a major component, divs in particular, and possibly hiding certain page components for mobile users. A concern of mine would have been having Google thinking I am using hidden text to boost rankings, but since you would be using multiple CSS stylesheets (one for mobile, one for screen), it seems like that would work ok. (note to evil alter ego — explore this for spamming! hahaha). There was far more covered, but I need to see it in practice to evaluate the value.

The second session was rather disappointing to me. The Yahoo speaker did a fine job of laying out their mobile platform/visions, but I saw it more as a vision of using their own content. While you could eventually get to mobile publisher content (like mine – duh), the primary content was largely Yahoo owned or partnered content. That’s hardly what I wanted to see. Of course Yahoo is not number 1, nor have they been for a while, so maybe their vision of sticky users will fall flat just as their wired stickiness did (stickiness in a sense that people used to search Yahoo because they were on Yahoo’s site all the time). The Nokia presenter who followed was so far in to this sticky search (you search what they let you) that it was a huge downer for me as far as a presentation. In their vision as interpreted by me, search usage on mobile devices will continue to work as today as long as they have anything to do with it.

I personally would like to see mobile search work just as wired search does today. I go to my engine(s) of choice and type in my search terms and get all relevant results. I don’t want a sticky search where I get search results primarily if not completely driven by my mobile providers partners. Maybe that’s just me.

Going from this presentation to the bar where they were out of Blue Moon on tap was just a double whammy that was tough to take. Luckily I was able to get bottles, but I just had the urge for draft pints!

My pet peeve of today’s US companies is that they spend months coming up with a plan for implementing anything financial related, but do not appear to spend more than 15 minutes thinking of how to respond to a routine failure within their business. Yes, airline companies have well thought out plans of how to respond to an air disaster. But do they really think about how to respond to just a run of crappy service. Given the recent Jet Blue debacle they may have something in mind now, but it took a massive pile of bad press in the face of a competitor for them to step up to the plate.

Listen corporate leaders, whether you have a significant web presence or not, you need to step up and prepare your web reputation for a slap in the face. Don’t call the superstar SEO after the fact and try to find a way to get your own website ranking ahead of bad press websites. Prepare up front and keep your SERPS and/or your view of the world on the top. Own the top positions for your brands, your products, and your key employees where reasonable before the bad press.

I’m one to think there is a trade-off between look and feel on a site and pure SEO needs. Lately however, I have been reading up more on conversions and actually calling users to action on a website. So my adjusted thinking of late with regards to the particular conversation I overheard is, if you do the SEO right, the user will never see the “uncool” link on the page these developers were talking about. If the SEO is done right, the user will land right on the product page that was pointed to by the link.

If the SEO is done right, the user will come directly to the product page, where it only takes one click to start the purchase the product. The truth is, if you want to sell products, you need the user entrance page to be the start of the purchase process. Every page a user has to go through before they can start the purchase process is another page that they can choose to leave the site.

E-commerce sites are not about being cool. E-commerce sites are about selling products. Yes, cool can make your customer think your site is very professionally done, but it only takes a few seconds to think of all the cool looking stores that are no longer in business. Get the user on the product page as quick as possible and make the sale.