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Mark Ginsberg, Founder

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Mark has been working in Internet Marketing since 2007. He has managed campaigns in highly competitive sectors for large brands, but also loves to help small businesses increase their online visibility and better understand their customers and their needs.

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Google and Bing Drop the Gloves

If you haven’t been following the SEO Twitter stream today, Danny Sullivan posted an article on Search Engine Land proving that Bing is copying data from Google’s search results. Danny explains how Google caught Bing cheating by setting up a search engine sting. They created a method of manipulating their own algorithm to manually insert results for unique queries that no one would ever search for. They then sent their own engineers home and told them to search for these terms in Google while using Internet Explorer with the Bing toolbar installed and the option for Suggested Sites turned on. They then found that some of their manually inserted results for those terms were showing up on Bing for the exact same irrelevant terms.

Bing’s response, also published today on Search Engine Land, is that what Google did was a novelesque stunt which happened to coincide with their own Search press conference being held today. However, they do admit that they use customer search data. They don’t deny that they’ve been using the data – in fact, they’re praising what they’re doing as being innovative. They argue that they are learning from their customers, that all of the search engines do it. [Read more…] about Google and Bing Drop the Gloves

Filed Under: SEO

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An SEO Small Business Nightmare

On my travels home today after another long day of work, I kindly got a ride from a neighbor of mine. During the course of our conversation, she mentioned how she’s a small business owner with a catering company based here in Israel. When I said I do SEO, she said has a website, and might be interested in doing some advertising, but she has a very small budget. She gave me the name of the site, which of course I couldn’t remember, so after some searching on Google and Facebook, I finally found it. To my despair, I discovered that the the site was built completely in flash, and guess what, includes one, and only one, indexed page in Google.

This just bugs me – the complete lack of responsibility on the part of whoever designed her site for her. You don’t have to be an SEO ninja to know that building an entire website for a business with only one URL is not a very good practice from any perspective. This small business owner, whose budget is limited, probably spent a pretty penny for this flash monstrosity. Yes, it has cool, interactive effects that move and make noise. But how is anyone ever supposed to find it. There is absolutely no content on the site (if you can call it that) that is not included in Flash.

Once I saw this, I began to wonder if it even pays for me to follow up on this no-longer promising lead. For a client with a decent budget, I would normally advise:

  • Redoing the site not in Flash
  • Creating a non-flash alternative both for the engines and people visiting the site who don’t have Flash installed on their computer (did the designer, whose website is now defunct, ever hear of Apple, the iPod/iPhone/iPad, or my parents, who don’t know how to install Flash)
  • At the very least, adding regular html content and pages to the site.

But this client, who’s struggling just to keep their business afloat, doesn’t have the necessary funds to implement these changes. Is this the type of small business you would want to take on as a client? Helping real people keep their business afloat and profitable is one of the joys of doing SEO with small businesses, helping mom-and-pop businesses stay above water. But in a case like this, where my recommendations will entail basically trashing the site they have and starting from scratch, isn’t it better to not get involved and recommend other options, like focusing on Social Media, which demands time, energy, and engagement, but not a large investment of funds?

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Top 10 Lessons from Sphinncon 2011

The Sphinncon SEO and Internet Marketing Conference recently took place in Jerusalem. The conference, organized by Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land, brought together some 400 SEO’ers and Socal Media Marketers at the luxurious Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem on January 9, 2011. It was a long day of sessions, shmoozing, and eating. Read on for my top takeaways from the day. [Read more…] about Top 10 Lessons from Sphinncon 2011