Web Marketing Strategy Update

I went back and had a look at the Yahoo Search Content Quality Guidelines the other day after Michael Campbell mentioned them in his ezine. They tell us that Yahoo wants to index:

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1. Original and unique content of genuine value
2. Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
3. Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
4. Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page
5. Good web design in general

Immediate Thoughts:

No revelations in (1) & (2).
(3) Seems to shout “anchor text,” but probably simply refers to linking in general since it’s said that for years
(4) Makes it plain that the title and meta description tag ARE important.
(5) Reinforces that search engines like html that validates, with structured sites full of good old plain links.

So what is search engine spam to Yahoo? Well, here’s what Yahoo says it doesn’t want in its index:

1. Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
2. Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page

Recently, I finally got around to looking at the scripts available for the Firefox plugin, Greasemonkey. I was not expecting what I found.

From the main site:

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension which lets you to add bits of DHTML (”user scripts”) to any web page to change its behavior. In much the same way that user CSS lets you take control of a web page’s style, user scripts let you easily control any aspect of a web page’s design or interaction.

For example, you could:

• Make sure that all URLs displayed in the browser are clickable links
• Improve the usability of a site you frequent
• Route around common and annoying website bugs
• Use the Coral content network selectively.

Most of the scripts are fairly innocuous and are designed to help users get more out of various websites.

But MANY are designed soley to strip ads from pages, remove redirects and even change affiliate links.

Here are some examples:

Bloglines Moreover Ad Remover
Description: Get rid of ads in moreover feeds on bloglines
Written By: Mysteriously Unknown

Ad Blocker
Description: Block advertisements
Written By: Mysteriously Unknown