iPhone's Browser's User Agent
Jul 9, 01:34 PMIf like me you've been wondering if any of the jesusphone people are lookin at your site on their strangely-crippled versions of Safari, it seems that there is no consensus on precisely which user-agent the iPhone is identifying itself as. Matt Cutts says it self-identifies as:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3But elsewhere the guidance is that screen resolution reports in Google Analytics is the best/easiest way to ferret-out the iPhone traffic on yr site. Hmm...
Proposal To Standardize URLs - KTHNKSBI
Jun 29, 09:07 AMThere's a seemingly sincere and therefore befuttlingly naieve proposal posted today on R/RW for standardizing the interwebs around keyword-rich and onto-logical URLs. A wonderful discussion happens in the comments on this page so do scroll downwards. I will likely repurpose some of this discussion for my class next winter...
It's a fun thing to think about... and let's not forget that SEO ppl have been using keyword-rich URLs in much the same manner that R/RW proposes for some time now. I've been informally experimenting with keyword-rich URLs for years now and it seems like the degree to which the major search engines' algorithms weigh keywords in the URL and/or domain name is governed by a knob that's twiddled-with constantly. Used to be a pretty big off-page optimization ... now not so much.
You Know You're Famous When
Mar 14, 10:39 AM
Homeboy writes and speaks about search engines... proof there's a groupie for every occasion (if not two... with beer...).
Vander Wal On The New Pew Report on Tagging
Feb 1, 02:37 PMAt first glance, this new report about 28% of Americans who're online having created tags is amazing. IA superstar and inventor of the term folksonomy Thomas Vander Wal digs into the data and observes that non-white survey participants are tagging more than their white counterparts. What's the reason?
These higher numbers of people tagging who are not white seems to support the idea that those whose vocabulary and terminology is not represented will tag to ease their refinding the information. When things are in familiar terms they are easier to find and having the ability to tag from one's own context eases refindability. The Report does not dive into this and it is a really good subject for future research.Folksonomy as a tool for overcoming the biases in systems built by and tuned to the language of the ruling class/majority? Very very cool... Yay tagging!
Snap: Huge Blasts Of Info Scent!
Jan 25, 06:26 PM
Say you're reading someone's blog and that the blog postings you read include hyperlinks to other sites. With me so far? That's the thing with these weblogs... they're *full* of links to stuff. And often, the link text in these blog entries is idiosyncratic and/or poorly spelt. Which links might be the valuable ones worth clicking and following? Which ones go to NSFW pr0n? Enter Snap... a search engine with the most engaging UI evar. And a kickass method for viralizing and microchunking its search results out to the blogosphere/myspaceoverse.
Google's Greed-Go-Round
Dec 15, 09:16 AMI'm flabbergasted. just watch:
Yahoo Reorg Mission Statement
Dec 6, 01:15 PMIn the wake of public grousing by Yahoo! senior VP Brad Garlinghouse about Yahoo!'s lack of focus and depth and his Peanutbutter Manifesto comes news today that the company is doing a re-org. The mission of the re-org was something I thought was worth teasing-out and considering here:
Yahoo!'s mission is to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world's knowledgeHmm... I'm hoping to find time to read Charlene Li from Forrester's take on all this.
RedZee - Search Without Pr0n
Dec 5, 01:12 PMI was skeptical at first, but this new supposedly porn-free search engine is pretty nifty. Best mascott evar! Downside: the top three results are paid listings, and there's almost no messaging to typical users that these are ads (as opposed to results).
P.S. the rates are fantastic if you want to do PFP and/or PPC with RedZee....
Stunt Train SEO Marketing Manifesto
Nov 28, 09:16 AMIllustrator/Marketer/Blogger-genius Hugh McLeod is an incredibly gifted meme-maker and dots-connector. He took the voluminous "markets as conversations" meme from The Cluetrain Manifesto and came back with a tight, smart, and ultimately more useful version of this gospel: the Hughtrain. That was many moons ago and in the time since then McLeod has gone on to prove its teachings to be very effective (see global microbrands). He's now issued a challenge on his blog for his readers to submit their own manifestos In 500 words or less!. One of the recent "winners" comes from an SEO guru and it's great! Here's a taste:
Pretty good stuff. Check out the entire Stunt Train SEO Marketing Manifesto.1. SEO is a marketing school of thought…not a process. There are plenty of people that understand the process, and don’t “get” SEO. Here’s the process - SEObook, SEO glossary, and Ranking factors. There’s still only ten spots that matter.
3. Search increasingly impacts every form of media. Every media distribution point is doing their best to incorporate search to personalize the conversation rather than just screaming at random people.
5. Any marketing decision impacts search engine rankings - and vice versa TV, radio, print and other ads can all be used for attracting links. Want to use all flash as the homepage? Pick a different school of thought.
6. Creating a “purple” idea is much easier than begging for links. There is always an extraordinary, remarkable new angle to any industry. SEO is about understanding the indirect correlation of things to execute on great ideas that no one else has envisioned by having a unique perspective on marketing. Looking for quick fixes and the latest loophole is NOT SEO. Drinkbaiting is SEO - if you can’t figure out why - you’ve never spent a full 40 hour week asking for links.
8. Top rankings won’t fix a shitty product
Question: what ever happened to the IA Manifesto 2.0?
Required Reading: Spam Farms of the Social Web
Nov 22, 09:00 AMNiall Kennedy's blog is required reading. Always. But today especially. Today he talks us through a tangled web of spammers and affiliate marketers and Digg trolls and Bangledeshi holding companies... all of which are colluding to help boost the search engine visibility of a dentistry practice's website (of all things!) in a world where the pay-per-click costs for keywords in the dentistry space can reach $18.00 or more. Check it out: The Spam Farms of the Social Web.
Pay an agency $75 a month to get six blog posts written about your goods and services... which then pushes your stuff upwards in the organic SERPS.. or spend $1000 a day to play the PPC game? Easy to see why spam in social networking sites is happening so much and so fast.
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My name is Dan Klyn, and I'm an information architect.
I work with amazing people at a nonprofit company called Flannel in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I also teach IA in the library science programs at the University of Michigan and at Wayne State University.
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