Marketing Pilgrim

While we’re busy discussing whether Twitter can become the next big search engine, or if Google can figure out how to tap into the “fresh” micro-content being churned out every second, we’re missing one crucial element that’s preventing both sides from achieving their goal.

The nofollow link tag.

(To clarify, I mean the rel=”nofollow” attribute, which is not the same as the “nofollow” meta tag, but many in the industry still refer to as a “tag” anyway)

What was initially sold by Google as a means to stop our “Google Juice” being shared with sites we don’t trust, is now so pervasive, it’s preventing search engines from tapping into the hundreds of newly minted web pages, video streams, images, and blog posts that are shared each day on sites such as Twitter.

Here at Marketing Pilgrim ORM (online reputation management and / or monitoring) is a subject near and dear to certain people’s heart. Who that is, well, we’ll let you figure that one out .

The reason that it is so important is well stated in a post over at SEOmoz by Rand Fishkin. His post was inspired by some information that Google passed along via a blog post by Matt Cutts that warrants a closer look. Since the question of “How do I get this page that is not speaking of well me or my company removed from the Google results?” is asked so often Matt posits his pat answer as follows:

Before we get started I need to tell you that I will need to fight a strong bias here to write about the issue of health records online. I have some background in the use, power and neglect of medical records from my days in the insurance business. In addition, I know the impact of a misdiagnosis and / or bad information that when it comes to many different areas of life, including how much you pay or whether you can even be covered for life and health insurance. Let’s just say when it comes to privacy I am a bit skeptical in general but more so regarding the Internet and health records.

At Econsultancy today, Editor-in-chief Chris Lake is putting social media measurement into perspective:

The key with social media measurement, I think, is to stand back and take a widescreen approach to measurement.

Rather than focusing on the smaller, campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter or the number of fans on Facebook, wouldn’t it be better to look at how it helps to shift the most important business KPIs, such as sales, profits, as well as customer retention and satisfaction rates?

Wait, what? Instead of looking at the easily measurable metrics, actually measure our success by how well our social media stats fit into our overall online strategy? . . . Nah, that’ll never work.

By Trisha Lyn Fawver

As usual, TechCrunch has got us thinking about things in a different light.  One of my favorite social media applications, Twitter, has been getting more exposure in the mainstream lately, and with that more people are questioning what they can use Twitter for.  Some see the micro-blogging service as just another distraction, or instant messaging on speed.  Much to my chagrin, many marketers are seeing Twitter as just another publishing platform to push ads.  And still some are seeing it for what it is: a valuable tool.

And what it’s becoming: a search engine.

Google is introducing new and improved expandable ads to AdSense. In an attempt to breathe life into a faltering advertising environment Google now allows expandable ads to be used but not in the way that makes most users want to eliminate them all together.

Over at VentureBeat there is a quick synopsis of this new Google attempt at making money off their core business. Who can blame them? As soon as I read the article which reminded me of the ridiculously annoying ads that show up on some sites (ESPN was a prime offender at one point) I figured that even Google had jumped the shark.