Expedia SEO Fail
Posted by Amrit Gill | Filed under SEO
Checking out the SERPs is so 2008 but boy I can’t stop looking even though Jill Whalen has told me to stop! [http://searchengineland.com/5-reasons-why-rankings-are-a-poor-measure-of-success-13258] However its always good to check out the landscape so to speak and keep an eye on the ole competitors.
The usual suspects were pretty much where they should be but I noticed something odd by the 3rd query. I was seeing Expedia being listed as a URL only within the SERP, so I checked a few more queries and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
As the picture below shows, the Expedia listing for Flights to Birmingham in google.co.uk shows a URL and nothing else! This could only mean one thing, someone at Expedia thought it would be good to dick about with the robots.txt for shits n giggles.
So with a quick glance at their robots.txt it shows that they have disallowed: /index/. Now, I can understand why a company would wish to do this, and that’s normally to migrate over to a new IA or business goals have changed and a large amount of the content have now become void.
Majority of the SERPs listings are being redirected to the expedia.co.uk homepage, so you think all is well and good in this successful navigation migration? Guess again, this is perhaps one of the biggest cases of SEO Suicide I’ve ever come across!
Why you gasp? Well within expedia.co.uk/index yahoo site explorer indexed around 36,700 pages, Google indexed 7,400 pages and Bing has 9,060 pages indexed. The pages, over time would have gained equity from becoming authoritative with back links – would you advise them to simply 301 redirect them to the homepage or what?
When I first discovered the issue, Google and Bing had thousands of pages indexed but has slowly excluded them from the index as per the robots.txt. Luckily enough we can still see the reminiscent of the SEO suicide by utilising search operators within the Search Engines and Yahoo Site Explorer.
Out of the big three, Google is adhereing to the robots.txt the most, currently showing 6,600 indexed pages, Bing 8,950 indexed and Yahoo showing 36,600 pages. Yes, this post has been going on for about three weeks!
Of course, the SERPs for our query (site:www.expedia.co.uk/index/) will rank the most prominent pages towards the top and Google still has the main category pages indexed as shown in the image below.
The table below shows basic information on the category pages listed within google.co.uk. As you can see, flights & hotels.aspx still carries PageRank (even after Jan 2010 Google Toolbar update) and plenty of links pointing to the page, albeit internal but links none-the-less!
| URL | PageRank | Inbound Links (External) | Redirect |
| /index/flights.aspx | PR3 | 526k (5) | Default.aspx |
| /index/hotels.aspx | PR3 | 526K (9) | Live |
| /index/holidays.aspx | N/A | 526k (5) | Default.aspx |
| /index/attractions.aspx | N/A | 526k (0) | Default.aspx |
SEOMoz provides a rather nifty tool where it picks out the top pages within a domain based on various metrics such as MOZRank and MozTrust. The following table highlights three pages that are within the top 100 pages of expedia.co.uk.
| URL | PR | Inbound Links (Ext) | Redirect |
| /index/latvia/1/riga-hotels.aspx (9th) | PR0 | 74 (72) | Correct |
| /index/italy/1/rome-hotels.aspx (12th) | N/A | 493 (73) | Correct |
| /index/turkey/1/turkey-holidays.aspx (28th) | PR2 | 74(74) | Default.aspx |
Here, Riga Hotels, Rome Hotels and Turkey Holidays are ranked highly within the tool and all three have inbound links and the Turkey Holiday page still holds PR! The Turkey holiday page redirected straight to the default homepage but the hotel based URL’s are being redirect to the newer versions, potentially passing juice along to the newer versions.
Or are they?
In order to pass on the equity cleanly, expedia.co.uk will need to remove Disallow:/index/ from the robots.txt for all the Search Engines to pass over the equity gained. So even though Expedia have executed the 301’s to an extent for the hotel based URL’s, the equity isn’t being passed on.
So what’s the best practice for mass 301redirects you ask?
Plan, Plan and then Plan again! Simply map out the pages you wish to remove, categorise them and simply partner with a relevant page or category under the new URL structure. However, if there are no relevant page within the new structure then simply redirect the page to a relevant hubpage or the homepage.
There has been talks that you can be penalised somewhat by the ole Googlemeister for doing a mass 301 redirect but this only occurs when you’re redirecting from multiple domains. [http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3714055.htm].
Another thing to remember, if any of the pages / categories are under some sort of a filter or penalty, this could potentially be passed on too. [http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3662077.htm]. With Google now admitting to page speed now being treated as a ranking factor, @neyne made a valid point recently that you’ll have to be considerate about 301 redirect chains and if they impact on page load times.
*** Update ***
I started this blog post a long long time ago – I think I first discovered the problem in Nov 09! As we all know, I’m not a regular blogger so things have now changed some what. Expedia have now amended their robots.txt and removed the disallows, equity will now be passing through but only if Google still holds equity for the old pages.
If you do site:www.expedia.co.uk/index/ in google.co.uk you’ll notice that it only returns a single result, hotels.aspx (only because they didn’t 301 redirected this). Now, I’m unsure and you’d have to test this Expedia – but there are a few wives tales out there that state that Googlemeisters remembers pages even if its not listed within the index, so it would be interesting to see if the hotels based keywords saw an uplift when Expedia made the robots.txt changes.
Spark Something – Like cohesive marketing strategies
Posted by Amrit Gill | Filed under SEO
I’m currently watching Arsenal spank Tottenham good and proper (2-0 at HT) and the latest Sony Ericsson TV advert came on for their new phone – Satio. The advert is catchy, typical of Sony with another colourful balls theme bouncing around the place, the advert ended with the ever-so fashionable “search for Spark Something online” call to action.
So with my trusty steed by my side I fired up google.co.uk and did a search for Spark Something and I was surprised by what i really saw.
Callum Adamson initially highlighted the LIAF at work but I just ignored it as a schoolboy error, but now seeing it in prime-time and expensive advertising spots I just can’t resist not to blog about the epic fail. The screen shot below shows at half-time during the Arsenal match the SERP for Spark Something and boy doesn’t Sony Ericsson look like idiots.
Spark Something SERPs
As you can see, the top three natural results are not Sony Ericsson property but a couple of blog posts about the campaign and an agency with an exact match for the query.
The PPC results are even more alarming, here Sony Ericsson have the ability to guarantee the highest position 100% of the time, just like Vodafone have for the query. So either way, natural or paid Sony Ericsson won’t be obtaining the traffic that the hip young gun slinger promised them when delivering the pitch that enticed the audience with search for Spark Something online.
I saw similar listings within bing.co.uk but yahoo shows Sony Ericsson site number one, though this could be a paid inclusion listing.
So where did they go wrong?
The biggest issue here is that there is a clear lack of consideration for the customer journey after the call-to-action. It could be down to a traditional marketing team and agency running the entire campaign, without getting the input of their online counterparts. Worse still, they gave the channel a very limited budget thinking they would be naturally found for the slightly obscure search query.
Communication can be deemed as another contributing factor to Sony Ericsson’s LIAF. Chances are they have a fantastic in-house Search Team with a supporting agency, but simply did not gain visibility of the campaign ran by the off line team.
Either way, it makes me wonder how much traffic they’re missing out from having visibility, if we look at Google trends and compare this to another well known campaign – compare the meerkats, we can see that Spark Something has gained momentum and will do so as the campaign rolls out, but at its peak – its not that far off from compare the meerkats.
Spark Something Trends
So if Spark Something was my baby
So with this lack of awareness and respect for online at Sony Ericsson and their lovely agencies, what can they do to repair the LIAF? What would I have done if this was my baby?
- If the campaign utilises a call-to-action to an online asset, communicate with key online stakeholders from the very beginning. If there is no in-house online marketing team? HIRE ONE!
- TV commercials are based on storyboards, so I would also storyboard the customers journey after the advert.
- Set out the budget for all online activity as part as the initial campaign brief, and not as an afterthought.
- Plan out clear objectives and goals for the online assets.
- If using a trendy search term as a Call-To-Action, review the SERPs for competitiveness and propose a SEM plan to secure the SERPs. So I would make sure that #1 will be www.hopperinvasion.com #2 will be www.sonyericsson.com and #3 will be a PR from the agency behind the campaign. I would also make sure the commercials are available within universal search under the Hopper Invasion URL.
- Chances are the lifetime of the campaign is relatively short, I would suggest building equity for the site with attitudes of shifting it across once the campaign is over.
- I would make sure that all assets are optimised to help support the keyphrase call-to-action, www.hopperinvasion.com certainly isn’t.
- I would set out an equity plan, chances are Sony Ericsson owns a dozen of micro / campaign sites that are inactive which could pass on lovely equity to support your call-to-action within the SERPs.
- Create a series of optimised PR’s supporting the Call-To-Action keyphrase and syndicate not only through PR Web and the likes, but to all marketing outlets.
- Place agreements with retailers and networks not to brand-bid on the keyphrase.
So to Fix the LIAF quickly?
- Turn on 100% visibility for Spark Something in PPC for both www.hopperinvasion.com and www.sonyericsson.com.
- Optimise www.hopperinvasion.com for the keyphrase.
- Place links from all Sony Ericsson assets with the keyphrase as the anchor text.
- Optimise and syndicate PR’s based on the campaign and more importantly the keyphrase.
- Set out clear objectives and goals for www.hopperinvasion.com and monitor closely.
- Question your agency responsible for this royal fuckup.
- Pull your socks up and start thinking seriously about online marketing within Sony Ericsson.
Who has done it right?
Whilst writing this blog post, I’ve come across another campaign where the Call-To-Action is a keyphrase for people to search online with. Hidden Killer, its a campaign ran by the government to raise awareness of asbestos. If you search for Hidden Killer online, the two natural results returned are property of the government agency behind the campaign, as seen in the image below. The nice touch is the youtube result with the correct URL.
Hidden Killer SERPs
Another advert that utilises a keyphrase for a Call-To-Action is from Betfair, at the bottom of their TV advert it prompts you to Search Betfair Football. The SERPs are dominated by betfair property, simply down to utilising their brand term within the search query.
Betfair Football SERPs
So hopefully Sony Ericsson or that young gun slinger at the high end agency comes across this post and fixes the LIAF.
Spark Something Now!
Amrit Gill
Page Segmentation and SEO
Posted by Amrit Gill | Filed under SEO
I know it is somewhat Le Grande Coq of me to assign myself as the winner of Tour De SEO already, but there is a reason for this. I am going to divulge my plan of attack to you all and of course to my partners in crime. I will be covering hot topics in individual posts such as:
- Page Segmentation
- WordPress SEO
- WordPress Duplicate Content
- Trends
- Spreading the Love
- Twittering
WordPress is a fantastic platform and happens to be my choice of simple CMS’s out there that’s free. The front end is template based and boy how important these templates have become. The Search Engine bots are simple folk but the algorithm that dissects the data and makes the assumptions is where the magic happens. The latest trick to be pulled out of the hat with the rabbits is Page Segmentation (PS).
Page Segmentation
So Page Segmentation is a form of Information Retrieval (IR) methodology where it splits up the content of a page into blocks and assigns a signal to noise ratio factor to each block. Luckily enough our WordPress Templates are naturally split up into segments to which can be seen by Humans and Robots alike either by code or design. PS can come in various forms and we’re unsure what SE’s use which, but it would be a wise idea to keep the idea of PS at the basis of all new designs or further optimising our templates.
So How Does Page Segmentation Work?
Chances are there will be a specific bot that will process all of your various templates and then assign it a value governed by the SE’s specific PS algorithm. This will then be fed back to the regular SE bots highlighting the blocks that are deemed to be a low value block (advertisement / spammy content) and what is a high value block (unique content, related post & navigation). This is also how the Search Engines can figure out if a specific block is based on advertising or where your site wide navigation sits. Depending on the quality of the content within the block, the algorithm assigns an importance value, the higher the importance the more often the block will be crawled by the normal bots.
So what do I need to know about Page Segmentation?
Well, there are four types, Fixed Length Page Segmentation (FixedPS), Dom Based Page Segmentation (DomPS), Vision Based Page Segmentation (VIPS) and finally Combined Page Segmentation (CombPS).
FixedPS
FixedPS strips out all the semantic code from the page and will remain with the raw content, so you guys can throw away what we have learnt from the recently updated SEOMoz’s Search Engine ranking factors. If this is looking at our raw copy itself, we have to make sure that our content is not only bloody fantastic, but also providing the robots a scent of subtle and natural signals. Content is king.
DomPS
DomPS is based all on the W3C’s DOM defined structure. It splits up the content by each specific element within the DOM, so <title> – <h1> – <p> and so forth and analyses each block for signals. So make sure that your template meets W3C respective standards. So if your design were based on tables – I would think again!
VIPS
VIPS splits up your website by visual queues, so you have to make sure your segments are clearly defined, visually and by code. For IR, this method is far superior to DomPS because it allows for groups of elements in a block, rather than one block per element. To benefit, you really have to make sure that you’ve got your usability A game in check here, think about your UX patterns and flow, is it consistent?
CombPS
CombPS is a combination of VIPS and FixedPS, this is simply down to the fact that the previous two methodologies can create too short of a block to evaluate – research has shown that 40% of the blocks produced contain less than 10 words. So it first processes the page utilising VIPS and then it applies FixedPS window frame on top of the larger blocks, so the search engines can pull through decent sizes of blocks to digest. So ladies and gentlemen, we not only have to produce brilliant content but we also need to provide clear visible cues.
So all in all, the technologies the Search Engines are using to retrieve the information from our sites look for signals that poor ole Vanessa Fox gets drilled for by Oilman and the infamous Greg Boser! Yeah links make up 80% of our SEO strategies but as you always know, we need to get our sites performing, so we’re not wasting all the equity we’re pulling in.
My take away from all this:
- Make sure content is your number one priority – give off the right signals within your content so read this article on content optimisation and read why content is king baby.
- So we know that the Search Engines like to use the DOM and could potentially find trouble if your sites layout is table based. Read up on valid xHTML and CSS, while you’re there you might want to read up on the W3C WCAG 1.0 / 2.0.
- VIPS is important not only to robots but to humans too. We look for distinction to help direct, we love patterns and to become intuitive and learn the way of the site in minutes. So check out UX patterns and this fantastic blog Smashing Magazine which covers design and usability.
So….if you’re struggling to topple your compadres at the top, you may want to re-think your SEO strategy somewhat and start looking at a few theories that are floating around here on the Internet.
So wish me luck guys!
Futher reading: Block-Based Web Search & Page Segmentation.
Tags: Page Segmentation
Google Bombs in 2009
Posted by Amrit Gill | Filed under SEO
So, this was posted recently in a forum and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
I’m still checking out the back link anchor text to see how they managed to slip this one through but from what people are saying, its a simple adjustment in the previous bombs to the whitehouse site for the incredible Bush. Though, I wouldn’t really like to be the guys behind this, especially when Google and Obama are in bed spooning.
But now, its gone social, i’m seeing an aggregator rank higher.
I’ll be seeing you.
Amrit.
Tags: google, google bomb, obama
Tour De SEO
Posted by Amrit Gill | Filed under SEO
Now that our bank of four is full and the banter has been rolling, we decided to have a little competition within the Search Team at flybmi. Yes it sounds playful, but it had a direct impact on my boastability at work, which I deem highly important!
Being the SEO Manager for both UK & International markets at a business class airline gives one an ability to aggressively bum-rush forward and win the Tour De SEO, but I work with very talented people.
Firstly, we have my boss, Callum Adamson (Search Manager) who’s kung fu style is PPC and Social with an MSG dosage of SEO. The dynamics of this one is balanced so finely, he has the whole – “I can still show you how to do it kiddo” mentality, where as I have the “I’m the specialist, you guys have a thing or twelve to learn from me!” pride driving me.
Then we have the Affiliate Manager, Christopher Wood. To which we have abruptly named DK (Double Kisser) simply because hes one of the best charmers around, and if you know affiliates, you know its all about what can you do for me, rather than what I can do for you! On top of the charm, he is lined up as a potential Iron Man.
Finally we have the new guy, Stato-King Supreme Aman Gaddu who is flybmi’s Web Analyst, who’s love for the weekend is as nearly as great for his love for raw data. The guy can spin pivot tables and pull out trends that I couldn’t even imagine, the guy has a silver bullet, he just has to talk about trends openly and people will start loving him.
Of course, you guys already know about me by reading the about me page, so I’ll swiftly move onto the rules of Tour De SEO.
So the basic rules for each site are simple, each site must be based on the wordpress platform, the domain name associated to it must have been registered in May 2009.
Our Designated blog categories:
- Amrit – SEO for travel
- Aman – Online trending
- Callum – Search marketing
- Chris – Monetizing a blog through affiliates
Metrics to which we will measure our performance against each month:
- Page Rank
- Unique Visitors
- Returning Visitors
- Bounce Rate
- Inbound Links
So each month we’ll score all our websites against the above metrics, so for the best performing website for each metric will earn a point, for the website that earns the most points in a month will be classed the months winner and will get an additional point.
The winner of the Tour De SEO will win the best website 2006 trophy that is knocking around the office, the loser will win The Complete Dumbass of the Year Award.
Additional to the above metrics, we all have chosen a single specific keyphrase that we will hunt for at www.google.co.uk (logged out) and the website that’s ranking the best will be awarded an extra point. The keyphrases will remain undisclosed so none of us can earn off from some friendly soul pumping in targeted link love to our site.
The rules we all adhere to are as follows:
- White hat SEO only
- Contestants are not allowed to purchase links of any kind
- Favours are only allowed for design and technical issues
- The domain must be newly registered (May 2009)
- No outsourcing content, development or link building
- Must be open to public scrutiny
- Home and work IP addresses must be excluded through Google Analytics
- We all have to add each other to our blogroll
So on your marks chaps.
Amrit.
Tags: Monetizing Blogs Through Affiliates, Online Trends, Search Marketing, SEO, SEO Competiton, SEO Travel
It’s been a while since I’ve last blogged, so I will try and keep the Errata Corrige short as possible! I have been on and off in the SEO industry for the past 5 years and have now settled in to the role of SEO Manager at