In what has become an exciting turn of events, another chapter of my career is underway.

As the title suggests, I have resigned from ADP, Inc. and will remain on hand for transitional efforts through February 6, 2009. My time spent with ADP has been incredibly enlightening. From the highs of successful projects to the automotive industry’s role in our economy, I have met a number of wonderful people and learned a wealth of knowledge.

Those who have known me a while likely know that I have co-founded two SEO firms in the past. Rather than start up another firm this time, I’m going to back to a simpler time of consulting on organic SEO and project management.

Thankfully too, I am fully booked and unable to accept any new contract work or opportunities. This is a very, very good opportunity both to exit ADP and make the most of a new and exciting opportunity. There may be more details in coming months, too.

I hate that I’m writing this post, but I’ll be damned if this service goes unnoticed by any of the 13 readers of my blog. I’m lying. I actually love that I’m writing this. Passion like this doesn’t come frequently to me, so when it’s here – I’m tapping it.

As the post title suggests I’m talking about uSocial. Specifically, uSocial.net. I’m not sure what they prefer to go by and we won’t know too much more until they launch on December 1st. When I hope you choose not to do business with them.

Emails from Serena Adamson at uSocial.net

I was contacted early Monday by Serena Adamson, the Publicity & Marketing Manager for uSocial.net. She emailed me about a joint venture opportunity where I would effectively pimp uSocial.net in exchange for some affiliate commissions.

It makes sense, provided that you didn’t take time to learn about me before pitching me. It was just last week that I ranted on ethics and social conversations, right?

Okay, fine.

So I took the bait looking to hear more about this wonderful proposal. The response I got back was both appauling and frustrating. Social Media Marketing is for some reason seen as a relative to Search Engine Marketing. I don’t buy that other than for the value of link generation – but that’s another topic for another time.

Rather than post Serena’s entire reply, here are two parts I want to highlight. The emphasis placed on certain sections are all my doing.

uSocial.net is a traffic generation company who provides our clients with high-quality traffic at a cost that cannot be compared with PPC, banner advertising and most other forms of traditional paid traffic generation. We manipulate social bookmarking sites like Digg and provide our client’s content on these sites with paid votes, enabling them to quickly and easily reach the front page of these sites and in turn, receive a flood of traffic. On average with our clients in testing, we have been able to provide over 100,000 unique visitors in 24 hours with an investment which upon launch will cost clients between $200-$300 USD with Digg, and around $100-$150 with StumbleUpon and Propeller. However, we have experienced up to 220,000 unique visitors in 24 hours. And unlike cheap paid hits sites, this is all quality, unique traffic coming from social bookmarking sites.

…

While most people can see the extreme value in investing in votes for sites like Digg, many are apprehensive about using such services as in the past it has resulted in their social bookmarking accounts being closed, or their site being banned from these sites. With uSocial this is a thing of the past for clients as we submit their content for them as well as place paid votes on it, meaning the risks involved in such practices are now a thing of the past.

Normally I would just fire off an irate reply, but I decided to see how far I could get Serena to go here. I asked her openly if I could blog about uSocial.net here on my blog with the intentions of raising awareness to the service, the launch of it, and its impact on the space. Word for word, that was my request.

Serena was all for it.

What About Ethics?

It’s no secret that Digg (and other communities) have taken strong stands against those in violation of the terms of service. Accounts have been banned. Sites have been effectively excluded. While some can rightfully get upset about how they’ve gone about doing that, Kevin Rose and the rest of Digg are trying to make the entire community a better place.

Enter the topic of ethics.

Don’t get me wrong. I could use some extra money just as much as the next guy. I’ll still favor ethics over a quick buck any day.

But these guys have a trademarked tag line of Get votes. Get traffic. Get Paid.

It sounds like one of those “Get Listing in 3,457,286 Search Engines -GUARANTEED” claims of bullshit.

Whatever happened to transparency? Why can’t they just say with no degree of uncertainty – that they’re spamming the shit out of social networks, polluting the user communities and gaming what is shown as the most popular stories?

Another thing. On their About Us Page they display their email addresses as an image with the following disclaimer:

You won’t be able to click the addresses above as we’ve made it an image to prevent those naughty spam-bots getting a hold of it, so we ask that you simply type it manually into whatever email program you currently use.

Right, because you’re all about the reduction of spam on the ‘net. I hope no one posts your email addresses of contact@usocial.net or affiliates@usocial.net anywhere else for those bots to find.

Sorry, it’s just unethical. I may not care if they didn’t try to dismiss the “risks involved” to site owners. You and I both know that someone will hire them in an flash and pay up for their services, and eventually get burned.

Secretive Social Bookmarking Ninjas

In the link building and search engine marketing space, ninja has become synonymous with Jim Boykin‘s firm, We Build Pages, an organization that has Jim fighting to preserve their image in the honor of ethical marketing.

uSocial.net claims to have “Secretive Social Bookmarking Ninjas”. As if ninjas alone conjures up images of massive, fumbling thugs who do nothing but stand out like a sore thumb.

When you decide to use uSocial to generate traffic for your website, sales page or product, we use our extensive network of secretive Social Bookmarking Ninjas to generate as many votes as you’d like for your website or content on social bookmarking sites Digg, StumbleUpon and Propeller. This will result in your website or page being shown on the much sought after front  page of these social networking portals and inevitably lead to a flood of traffic to your site…

More on the ninjas can be seen in their FAQ section:

Who votes for my submission on the social bookmarking sites?
We have our own network of Social Bookmarking Ninjas who are all employees of uSocial. Whereas our competitors rely on other Internet users to vote on content for them, which is not only unreliable but can result in some disgruntled social bookmarking site users giving negative votes, our worldwide employees are all screened and their voting monitored to ensure that the greatest possible amount of your votes are delivered to you, as well as being delivered on-time.

Flaunting Their Success in the FAQs

One visit to their FAQ page reveals that they’re openly gaming Digg and others. Remember the whole account deletion subject? Check this FAQ out:

Am I doing something illegal when using your vote-buying service?
No. While social bookmarking sites don’t like people buying votes on their sites, there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it. Sites like Digg forbid you buying votes as part of their terms and service and they can close your account as a result of you purchasing votes, though we have already served tens of thousands of votes and as yet, not one of our users has reported to us their account has been closed.

They then go on to casually address the risk they’ve already sold you against:

Is is possible my social bookmarking account could be banned if I buy uSocial votes? Unfortunately yes, this is possible as several of the sites we use forbid it as part of their terms of service, however we have already tested thousands of votes over dozens of accounts and as yet, no account has been closed due to the secretive and advanced methods of vote generation we use.

Protect Social Communities

The great thing about social communities online is that they tend to police themselves pretty well. I hope if nothing else, some of the more conscious members of these networks can help spread the word about uSocial and be on the lookout for their continued spamming when the company officially launches on December 1st.

If you happen across something you think is suspect, keep an eye on it and those involved with the item’s promotion. It’s pretty clear that uSocial has a network of ninjas into the hundreds.

Parting Shots

uSocial.net also touts their incredible charity program saying that they want to have a positive impact on the world they’re polluting. Awesome. It’s time to use their own words against them. “..thank you for supporting us and in turn, supporting a positive change in this world. Do your part — help us make a change!”

Help me make a change here. Let’s rid quality sites and communities of these slimy characters.

When I had to cancel my plans to speak at ScarySEO, I was bummed. I actually fear speaking to groups. There’s something about the social anxiety and fear of bringing nothing of value to the table that’s simply intimidating.

It doesn’t matter how large or small the group is… It’s simply tough for me to get used to.

I was sitting around a bar Monday night with Eddy, Hunter and Matt before we went over to the Cambridge SEO Meetup Group’s event where I was speaking. Once they convinced me that a stiff Sapphire and Tonic may do me some good, I was good to go.

At the end of the night I was more than happy to have been there. Attendees engaged in conversation and proactively gave one another suggestions and feedback. it was exactly what an SEO meetup is all about. But, I still worried about not having brought enough information, insight or perspective for folks to appreciate.

I just went back to the meetup page though and saw some of these comments…

“ Excellent speaker. Real world experience that relates to what I do on a daily basis. ”
Todd Greenwood

“ I thought the presentation by Eric Lander was informative and certainly worthwhile. I am new to the SEO space so some of the allusions to php coding was a bit above my head, but I actually got most of the content. I also liked the interaction with the audience. I learned a lot from the questions being asked and liked the relaxed and open atmosphere of the meeting. ”
Claude Pelanne

“ The speaker was excellent. He dismissed some old myths about how to do SEO and told us clearly how to modify our web sites to generate more business.
Jerry Shapiro

“ Another excellent meeting and discussion. The speaker was excellent and full of unique insights. The ensuing discussions resulted in some excellent knowledge sharing and fruitful interaction. The networking component was excellent with good exchange of contacts and information. ”
Kiril Stefan Alexandrov

“ It was my first time, and being someone who is just getting to know SEO it was great! I took a ton of notes so that I could read more about the things that I did not know. The open forum was great because real world problems were discussed and advice was given from the guest speaker and the more experienced audience. Overall, I thought it was a great meeting. Well orchestrated. ”
Joshua Brown

Seriously guys? I owe you a tremendous amount of thanks.  Last Monday night was exactly what I needed on so many levels. Anytime you’d like for us Rhode Islanders to join you again, you let us know. :)

Just throwing a feeler out there to see if any of the local SEO crew will be heading into Providence on Tuesday night to meet Nick Gerner of SEOmoz when Jill Whalen, Pauline Jakober and Jonathan Hochman throw the next installment of SEMNE events.

I’ll be there. Likely with a hearty crew of my ADP search team. If you’re planning to attend, hit me up with an email or comment so I know to look for you and say hi.

Google Sitelinks is an automated program that displays between three and eight indented links for the top ranking website shown for particular search query.  This blog post is dedicated to my research of the Google Sitelinks program and will include a number of examples, theories and best practices.

Preface
On Tuesday October 7, 2008, I spoke at the Search Marketing Expo East (“SMX East”) event at the Javits Center in New York City.  The panel I was part of discussed Enhanced Listings, and my topic in particular was the Google Sitelinks program.

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable live blogged the session, and his coverage of the panel is available here.

Finally, as a disclaimer of sorts – I’d like to address the naming of Project Big Water. On the morning of October 7th, my research into the Google Sitelinks program was dubbed “Project Big Water” by industry friends who also shared excellent examples with me to research. Since that day, BigWatah.com has launched, and, Brent D. Payne blogged on Marketing Pilgrim about Big Watah and this effectively unrelated event here.

And with that housekeeping out of the way, lets talk Google Sitelinks.

Google Sitelinks: An Introduction

Google Sitelinks.  What are they? They’re a series of links that Google will display underneathth the first organic search result. You’re probably very familiar with Sitelinks visually – so lets start with Google’s example from the Webmaster Central help center.

Again, this visual is probably quite familiar to you.  But before we begin to dissect these links, lets take a closer look at why Google displays these links to users.

Why does Google offer Sitelinks?

It is my belief that Google chooses to display Sitelinks for a few reasons:

Help users navigate your site: I’ll start with this bullet point because it comes straight out of the  Webmasters/Site Owners Help section. It’s also quite sensible for Google, as their primary concern should be a high quality search experience. Sitelinks will help you to find what you’re after more quickly and easily by eliminating clicks.

To help refine search queries: I’ll venture out on a limb here and say that most people searching Google are lazy. So lazy in fact, that we’ll jump at an opportunity to type less than we already do, even if it means we don’t find what we’re after right away.  Enter Sitelinks. A simple branded query for something like “disney” will allow a searcher to simply click their way onto popular topics and site sections like vacations, Mickey Mouse, or perhaps the Disney Store. Google is interpreting your search and producing immediate refinements based on what they believe to be most useful to you.Here’s an example that I used in my panel presentation for a Google search result on “honda“:

I think the above example is great because it shows us how a brand name like Honda can be interpreted in so many ways. Most consumers will probably be after Honda’s cars, trucks and SUVs — so it’s no surprise to see Automobiles as the number one link.  It’s not unrealistic though to think someone may just lazily search for “Honda” when wanting to check out something about their racing teams, off road vehicles, investor relations, etc.

To link to important pages: Compounding on the previous bullet point, you will often see Sitelinks for the most important pages of a web site.  Why? In addition to being popular resources, important pages are useful and help to improve the search experience.  On smaller web sites you will often find Sitelinks that line up with conventional pages such as the “about us”, “contact information”, “driving directions”, “store locator”, etc.

When do Google Sitelinks Display?

Everyone wants to know how to get Sitelinks to appear for their site. But first, we must look into when they will appear… And that question of “when?” can easily be answered… When one site dominates a search query. We’re talking about sites that are so far in first place, second place couldn’t touch them with all the SEO and backlinks in the world. Unless it was me consulting for them.

In other words, its entirely possible to have Sitelinks display for queries that are not done for brand names.  Since the Sitelinks program debuted in the summer of 2006, more and more non-branded SERPS contain Sitelinks.  All indications are that Google will continue this trend as they look to improve the quality of their search results.

My favorite SERP to demonstrate this is for “video games” where GameSpot is simply killing it with each of the major consoles itemized.  Someone in their SEO department deserves a vacation.

Other times you may see Sitelinks in the SERPs may include important people’s names and proprietary phrases. As an aside, I found it cool that Matt Cutts doesn’t get any Sitelink love but Jonathan Hochman and Stephan Spencer both do.

[Puts on Tin Foil Hat...]

You know what else I think contributes to Sitelinks? Analytical data. Not exclusively Google Analytics, either. I’m talking Google Toolbar data. General usage statistics. Common clickthrough paths. All of those things.

If Google knows that 3,000 people a day are conducting the same search query, clicking through to the same pages in the same sequential order all before exiting a site… Wouldn’t it make sense for them to include a Sitelink to the final destination page?  Of course it would.  And Google has more than enough data to put those paths together.

Theoretical? Of course. But certainly possible.

Fundamentals of Google Sitelinks

Okay, its time to take a deeper dive into the elements at play when Sitelinks are determined and displayed.

The first and most annoying is the fact about the Sitelinks program is that it is an entirely automated system.  You can’t enable Sitelinks.  They’ll either be there, or they won’t be. All of my research has shown that there is a search volume threshold that helps trigger when Sitelinks display.

We need to realize that Sitelinks uses an entirely independent algorithm than the traditional organic search results.  Early indications were that order of Sitelinks was determined by the internal page strength of the pages included in the program. While I certainly believe that internal page strength is a factor involved, it’s certainly not alone.

Another quirk about Sitelinks is that they’ll always display in the same order. You have no editorial control to shift them around at all.

If you want to have any influence at all on your Sitelinks, you’ll want to get your site verified and included into your Google Webmaster Tools account. You may not be able to shift the ordering around or trigger when Sitelinks will or will not display – but you will have some tuning available as I’ll cover later.

The last piece involved here is your own creativity and ingenuity. You can easily drive yourself crazy trying to determine why your Sitelinks behave the way they do… But take it all with a grain of salt.  This is still a very new program with regards to optimization techniques – and it will take a lot of testing to get it right.

Google Sitelinks and Google Webmaster Central

As mentioned above, you’ll need to get your site verified with Google’s Webmaster Central if you hope to influence the Sitelinks displayed for any domain. Once you have done that, you can access your Sitelinks panel through the following navigation:

Once you’re inside that area, things get a little funny on you.  I’ll cover some of the nuances though in the next section…

Frustrations & Quirks with Google Sitelinks

Controlling and Blocking Sitelinks: With the Sitelinks program, there’s no inclusion model Google simply spiders your content, runs your site through an algorithm and pushes out a list of Sitelinks if they deem you worthy. So in that aspect, there is already very little control.

It’s possible though that the Sitelinks Google suggests are ones that you do not want displayed.  For this purpose, Google does allow you to block Sitelinks from appearing in the search results.  I’ve come across a number of cases where this was particulary useful, including here on my own blog.  Many times there is simply content you do not want promoted with the perceived level of authority that a Sitelink carries.

So.. Blocking Sitelinks is easy, right?  Sure it is. Just click on the “Block” link and as Google says, that link will be blocked from appearing for 90 days.

Once you’ve blocked URLs, the blocking period will reset to another 90 days every time you visit the Sitelinks page in your Webmaster Tools account.

No joke. that proves to be problematic when you’re running tests in an agency style environment because there’s no way to check in on one site, see what’s blocked and then leave. There needs to be more editorial control here and I think it’s a very weak assumption for Google to just increase the blocks to 90 days again and again.  You can easily choose to unblock URLs too with just a click inside the Sitelinks panel.

Time frame for Blocks to Stop Displaying: Also, the blocks are not instantaneous.  Test cases that I have run show that there’s an average of about 12 to 14 days before blocks are reflected in the search results.  I’d assume that time frame will shorten up as more people begin using the Sitelinks program… But for now, it is what it is.

Three to Eight Sitelinks: That’s the total number of links that will display in the search results. If you have an active inventory of more than 8 Sitelinks appearing in Google’s Webmaster Tools – start blocking out as needed to make sure the top 8 there are the ones you really want to be used.

You can always block out more, too.  You don’t need to fill up all 8 slots. You do need to maintain at least three unblocked Sitelink URLs though.  Any less than that and the system will stop displaying your Sitelinks alltogether.

Case Sensitivity: Another quirk with Sitelinks is their inability to maintain character case in links.  Everyone is familiar with Apple and their iPhones, iPods, ITunes and so on… But check out how Google displays their Sitelinks:

Getting New Content into Sitelinks: Ready to be discouraged? For the sites inside of my testing group, the newest content showing up in the Sitelinks was more than 7 weeks old.  That’s horrifying for sites (including blogs, in particular) that thrive on current events and stories.

Google Sitelinks: Best Practices

Sitelinks is simply an enhanced type of search result.  Therefore, the standard SEO variables are in play here, with a heavy emphasis on links – both internal and external links.

You’ll want to make sure you structure your content in a typical manner. Stick to content themes and employ the SEO101 approach.  You’ll want to use headings where appropriate to organize content on pages and pay close attention to providing clear and concise page titles.

Since link popularity and page strength are both important factors in the Sitelinks algorithm, be sure to measure links using the Webmaster Central tools. As is the case with most Google SEO, the more links – the better.  Just be careful not to rely too heavily on any one type of link or anchor text.  Subtle variations seem to help Google understand the importance of Sitelink candidates.

If you care about your Sitelinks – never 301 and existing Sitelink.  In three seperate case studies that I ran earlier this summer – all three sites lost the Sitelink URLs (old, and new).  One of those sites had been showing 7 Sitelinks, and one 301 somehow shut down all of the Sitelinks in a few weeks time with no other changes having been made.

Google Sitelinks & XML Sitemaps

Kate Morris detailed a test that she had run where the priority supplied in an XML sitemap actually influenced the ordering of pages in the Sitelinks program.

Like Matt McGee, I’ve never found XML Sitemaps to be much of a help at all.  But, I can understand how (or at least why) Google would be open to considering this data for shifting Sitelinks around.

I haven’t had a chance to test this out myself yet – but I do have a test planned for the next few weeks.

Using Social Media Tagging to Score Google Sitelinks

One of the posts here on my blog that I needed to block was a blog post about someone.  That post had a number of people tagged too.  In less than a month that entry shot up to the top of my Sitelinks which caused some concern.

It’s not that it was bad content – it’s just not that important to users who are looking for me by name.

In researching the backlinks on that particular post, I found that Technorati was carrying major influence since many of the backlinks were reported on www.technorati.com in addition to the various sub-domains of technorati.com including feed.technorati.com, search.technorati.com and others.

Other social media sites that used tagging to help create a massive amount of backlinks include Friendfeed, Twitter and MyBlogLog.

Questions? Comments?

Admittedly, the topic of Google Sitelinks can be a bit dry and plain.  When used correctly though, Sitelinks can really improve upon Google’s user experience while also providing more opportunities for search marketers.

But – this is still a very new program in the sense that Webmaster Central control is only a few months old. If you have any questions on this program, I’ll certainly do my best to help out. Leave a comment below so we can help to grow this resource out for more users to benefit from.