The Big Wave Blog

Open Search Forum with the Engines
Special Guest Moderator: Guy Kawasaki
December 4, 2007

Guy Kawasaki is a real pleasure to watch. This was my first time seeing him in person, and it was amazing to hear him speak. The panel was star-packed with representatives from the 4 main engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask):

Matt Cutts: Web Spam Team – Google
Tim Mayer: VP, Product Management – Yahoo
Daniel Boberg: MD, Sales Technology – Yahoo
Rahul Lahiri: VP, Search Product Management – Ask Jeeves
Eytan Seidman: Program Manager – MSN Search

Moderator: Guy Kawasaki – MD, Garage Technology Ventures

The session was filled with a lot a very direct and valid questions, which were thrown to the search engine representatives by the moderator and the audience. Interestingly, none of them gave a straight answer! Corporate culture at its best, I guess. Nobody wants to say  or express any opinion that might not be in conjunction with the “corporate policy” of the search engine. It was apparent that the star of the evening was none other than Mr. Kawasaki, who tried his best to get some real answers from the search engine honchos.

A very entertaining end to a very long first day at PubCon.

Link Buying
December 4, 2007

If anyone was sleepy today @ 4 PM Vegas time…. this was surely the wake-up session. With panelists like Rand Fishkin (SEOMoz), Jim Boykin (We Build Pages), John Lessnau (Link Adage), Aaron Wall (SEO Book), and Matt Cutts (Google), there was plenty of excitement to go around.

Aaron Wall and Matt Cutts have been going around most of November throwing burning arrows at each other, and the tension was felt when Aaron took the stage. His website was penalized during the recent Page Rank update, and he is obviously not thrilled about it.

Aaron is a man on a mission. Flanked by his new wife and taking big strides, he was hard to catch up with to have a conversation. At the next event, I hope to catch up with him and get introduced formally.

Here are some funny quotes from this power-packed session:

• “There are other good niche directories I am not naming as Matt might KILL them!”
  -Aaron Wall
• “Stay under the radar…Don’t piss off Google!”
  -Aaron Wall
• “His style is Mountain Man.”
  – Rand Fishkin about Aaron Wall

Rand’s comedy was a bit risky considering Aaron had the “don’t mess with me today” look.

Hopelessness is a key factor when you decide to go and buy all the links you can because nothing else is working.

In the end it is all about risk and reward. There are risks involved with buying links and nobody can guarantee anything. That’s the way search engines like Google operate. They want to maintain a high quality of search results, and every now and then some of us will have to bear the brunt of their spam teams.

Overall this was a very entertaining session, with lots of cheers and jeers!

Social Media and Search
December 4, 2007

 This session would have been a lot snoozier if not for some excellent insights from Chris Winfield. He was definitely the “live” presenter of the group and brought up some very good points on how to balance Google and his favorite social media website, Digg.

He has a slide with Google + Digg = ♥
Awww!

Here are the top points:

• How the two media give rankings:

  Google: Keyword research + Optimization + Links = ranking
  Digg: Create viral content+ submit to Digg = ranking

• Factors that determine your rankings:

  Google Algorithm: Meta + Title + Domain + Links
  Digg: Type of user voting (power vs. user), Type of vote (friend or fake)

Overall, the advantages of using social media in conjunction with search engines are clear. It gets complicated when people start to misuse the medium and spam it with irrelevant votes.

I feel you cannot just join a medium for the sole purpose of voting and promoting your clients. Understanding the medium is essential, and knowing what other members of the medium like/dislike is crucial.

Most of these initiatives should come from within the organizations. A search agency can show you the way, but ultimately the right way to promote any business on a social platform is to keep it real. Fake posts and bogus voting might work in the short term, but it will only harm your messaging in the long run.

Meeting Andy Beal!
December 4, 2007

After the reputation management session, the next one I was planning to attend was in the same room. Soon the crowds cleared out and… voila! There was Andy standing right in front of me. In a moment of gusto, I went and introduced myself and asked a friendly bystander to take a photograph to capture the moment.

Andy’s Marketing Pilgrim was one of the first blogs I subscribed to via RSS, and it remains one of the top sources of information for our blog and our agency. I am looking forward to getting a copy of his latest book Radically Transparent.