CheapTweet has addressed a great need by harnessing the power of Twitter to help make consumer dollars stretch further. All day, CheapTweet indexes about 30,000 tweets about deals, filters out spam and duplicate content, and adds more than 10,000 new deals to the web site – many of which are different one-of-a-kind deals from boutique sellers. Deals are then ranked by how much they are talked about on Twitter and CheapTweet user votes. With so many diverse deals pouring into the system in real-time, CheapTweet has developed the DealStream to help visitors find the ones that are right for them.

CheapTweet’s DealStream is a real-time, personalized deals system where you can set up your own stream to track categories of deals, brands, merchants or keywords which are filtered and organized based on a relevance algorithm that takes into account your preferences and deal quality. Visitors can get these results on CheapTweet.com or via a convenient RSS feed.

As well as the DealStream, CheapTweet has recently made upgrades to its search engine, that uses particularized algorithms to combine tweets about the same deals, helping you speedily see what deals are hot, as well as sort through spam. There are also changes to the CheapTweet voting mechanism, allowing you to give deals a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Finally, CheapTweet clearly labels official accounts so shoppers know when they are looking at legitimate deals from a real merchant. Together these changes allow a clean but intelligent means to save money.

CheapTweet (www.CheapTweet.com) is a social deals search engine that scours Twitter to find any and all money-saving opportunities available to consumers. To date, CheapTweet has indexed more than 5 million deals from tens of thousands of sellers. CheapTweet is operated by Appozite (www.Appozite.com), an Austin, Texas-based startup developing social e-commerce software to connect unique and interesting retailers with customers. Appozite also makes TweetReach (www.tweetreach.com), a tool for measuring Twitter campaigns.

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I touched on this briefly in my Shopping Cart SEO Tips post, but there are a couple of different conditions that require some finesse so let’s run through the most common cases:

Product Goes Temporarily Out of Stock: If a product goes out of stock temporarily, but you do expect to get it back in stock,  you’ll want to leave the page up from a search engine perspective. You want to make sure that you let the customer know the product is out of stock. If they can order it or be notified when it comes back in, that’s great. But taking the page up and down–that’s bad mojo right there. Don’t do it.

Product Goes Out Of Stock Forever: If the product goes out of stock forever, you have a couple choices. You can leave the page up with a discontinued notice on the page. IMHO that’s not the best way to go for search engines. Ideally I’d like to not lose any link equity and 301 the product page to a similar product, category/department page, or home page.

Product is Replaced or Updated: If a product is replaced or updated, handle it the same way you would handle a product that goes out of stock forever. Unless there is some value in maintaining an un-purchasable archive page, 301 it to the new product, up one category/department, or back to the home page.

Expired or Completed Auction Page: Handle this the same way as a product going out of stock or being replaced.

Why would you want to 301 the product/auction page instead of letting it expire and issuing a 404? Two key reasons: link reclamation and conservation of  existing link equity. Are all of your products/auctions going to get links? No, but some will. Links are like money: once you have them, you don’t wan to waste them or throw them away. You want to keep them. I wouldn’t advise trying any tricks with rel=canonical either. Search engines have said they will make their own decisions when it comes to  rel=canonical and IMHO the last thing you want to do is leave things to chance. Take the easy method that works and 301 the expired page.

If you are going to have a high volume of items that do this, you’ll want to work out an automated system to take care of as much of this as possible. Use product names, SKU’s ISBN, tags, or even product categories if you have to. Just don’t let them expire.

The danger of leaving up expired products/auctions is that you create a lot of useless pages. Your site only has a certain amount of inbound link equity, so don’t squander it on product pages with no value. Now if you sell unique collectibles and you want to keep the archives up, that makes sense, but if you’re selling consumer goods like an iPod or Samsung LCD TV, there’s just no point to it.

Lastly I’d like to bring up something called predictive SEO, which I wrote about in 2005. If you know that a product is coming, why not put up a page about it in advance? Don’t be a spammer and put up an empty page. Try to put something up that has some useful information: when is it supposed to be out, what are the specs, the price, etc. I also think it’s pretty smart to try and capture leads if you can as a way to lock in some future sales.

So, to wrap things up, here are the take aways:

• Put up and leave product pages up where you will be selling or restocking an item in the future.
• Capture leads for future sales on out of stock products wherever possible
• Redirect out of stock or discontinued products via 301 to replacement product pages or appropriate department pages
• Automate redirection as much as possible to cut down on maintenance

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A search engine “spider” also known as a “crawler” is a software program that search engines such as Google use to find out whats out there on the web. The web is a huge place, so something needs to travel around and see whats offered on it every second of every day, and the spider is it.

The spider looking at your information follows all of your hyperlinks on each page after the page is loaded. Much like a spider crawls through a web and finds all insects that get stuck in it, the “spider” on the web crawls around web sites and will eventually find your information.

When a spider visits your web page, the content on your page gets loaded into a database (picture a gigantic excel file the size of your city) After your web page has been retrieved, the search engines loads your content into their index, like drawers and drawers of index cards, your words get organized.

In SEO the spider goes out and finds your pages, then they break down all of your words on your page and then all of your URLs are fed back into the SEO program.

The first thing a spider does when it visits your page is look for a file called “robots.txt.” It is a special file that tells the spider what to index and what not to index and if the spider doesn’t find the page, the page will be thrown out, hence why you may not get recognized in a search engine.
The only way for a spider to see your information is for it to have a robots.txt file. A spider will find your page by following hyperlinks or “found pages.”

Search engine may have a URL submission form in which you will want to request that they add your site to their index, this is a good idea to do in most cases. One last thing I have learned is that if you are submitting your site to a search engine, it is very important to not submit it to the sites you find or software you can purchase that will submit your site to hundreds of engines, this does not work. More and more links you have on your site will also improve rankings.

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Or not. Apparently this person is confused about what, exactly, SEO will stand for once it’s trademarked. In the original filing, Search Engine Partners/Shangri-La Boutique filed as SEO standing for “Search Engine Optimization,” which the application claimed they first used in September 1996, and first used in commerce in September 1999. The filing also includes a pseudo mark (this is supposed to apply to other words that are pronounced the same way) of “Strategically Elevating Optimization,” which a company SEP acquired used as a slogan on its invoices.

Interestingly, the invoices, from January 1997, are for a 30 keyword SEO campaign. (With a money-back guarantee!) However, in the same amendment filing, they claim that “In 1997 the service known as search engine optimization was called web site optimization among several other terms because the process of optimizing websites ‘offsite’ did not yet exist because search engines like Google that look for ranking factors outside of the websites themselves did not exist” (emphasis added). And perhaps most interesting, as a comment on the Search Engine Land points out, the invoiced domain would not be registered until seven months after the invoice date.

I love this. Most people rag on SEO because they think it’s all on-page stuff. No, no, says this person—SEO only refers to off-page efforts! (And if you’d like the history lesson, Google began in 1996 as a Sergey/Brin research project called “BackRub,” which counted backlinks to rank content.) And it’s so effective, we can use it on websites that don’t even exist yet! (I’d check Archive.org, but it says robots.txt has blocked the Wayback Machine for that domain. Good. Job.)

The filing claims that SEO was in common use, but it didn’t stand for anything until that year, and no one knows where it came from. The evidence includes a full proposal for the prospective client. Other than on the invoice page, the term “SEO” is never used in any form—”web site optimization” is the preferred term.

It’s really tough to choose a favorite part of this case, but if I had to, I’d go with the biography of the filer. Among his credentials listed on his website:

• one of the first published search engine optimizers (SEOs) and search engine optimization consultants
  • The citation provided as evidence? The URL for the Search Engine Consultants page at Wikipedia. Guess who isn’t listed?
• He already holds the trademark on this term, and has since 1996! Unfortunately, that’s news to the US Trademark/Patent Office. Despite the fact that holds the trademark, “it seems to be between he and a Jason Gambert.” Sadly, he’s not joking
• After 10 years away from the industry, he was recognized by Wikipedia as an SEO. Guess who doesn’t even have a page on Wikipedia? And not for lack of trying: the deletion log shows that a page about this guy has been deleted five times for copyright infringement, blatant advertising, and not meeting inclusion guidelines for biographies.
• He created SEO 2.0 to deal with Universal Search.
• Nowhere on the page does he use the phrase “strategically enhancing optimization,” but he uses “search engine optimization” many, many times.
• He “managed to optimize his own name so well that Google now recognizes it as a keyword.” And the evidence is a screen shot of Google Suggest, where he’s entered his first name and the first three letters of his last name, which is seven letters long (and the results estimate? 1350).
• Of the 53 citations on his biography, 35 are the URLs for articles in Wikipedia which give definitions for a term (including “Active duty” and “Base (chemistry),” which actually isn’t used in the biography). None of the citations are active links.

I’m not sure we need to worry too much. He’s been working on this trademark application for a year, but it doesn’t look like he’s making much progress.

Here’s the problem: In the US, you can’t register something that’s merely descriptive or generic. (Well, you can register a trademark on something that’s descriptive—if it’s become primarily associated with your business by consumers at large. That’s just not going to apply here.)

In June, the USTPO rejected the application as too descriptive/generic, hence the filings to prove the use of the term in commerce, and the addition of the pseudo mark [as mentioned above, the pseudo mark was included in the initial filing]. The most recent word from the USTPO comes from November 30 (emphasis mine):

While applicant’s response includes arguments and evidence against the rejection in the June 22, 2009 office action of the Section 2(f) claim based on insufficient evidence, it is still unconvincing. The rejection is hereby continued and maintained due to the new issues raised by the response below. As stated in the June 22, 2009 office action, applicant’s arguments and evidence against the descriptiveness refusal were not persuasive and will be addressed pending applicant’s response to the new issue below raised by applicant and when the application is not in suspension. Applicant did not respond to the prior pending applications likelihood of confusion advisory (no response was required yet, and 3 of the 5 potentially cited applications have abandoned) and the information requirement (a response was required). The descriptiveness refusal, the information requirement, and prior pending applications likelihood of confusion advisory are hereby continued and maintained.

The only response so far has been to change address.

Feel free to read the 250 pages of the filing. It’s not quite as dumbifying as Gambert’s filings—and hey, there are pictures!

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It seemed only sensible, given Google’s Psearch expansion, to have another look. And so last December we started a third round. Has anything changed? How much flux is out there? Well, read on and find out what we’re seeing so far…

Now, first things first; the goal wasn’t really to establish how personalized search operates. What we really wanted to know is how much movement is there in the SERPs for a given query type, in a given region (USA in this case). Yes we’re also noting some potential personalized search affects, but movement/flux was the core observation.

We must understand that even though there is some interesting data here, it is by no means a large enough sample to get nitty gritty with IMHO. It is also important to remember this is a specific task from a quasi-transactional query session (task development).

We want to go back and do more from an informational query space and one more suited to respondents (familiar, such as ‘learn SEO’ etc..). This approach, last time out, did show more movement than we saw with this space (we’ve done this round 2x now). 

As always, no magic bullets here… Just more links in the chain (pun intended of course).

The Set up

We decided to take a set of queries to build a session (task) in a space that may or may not be familiar to the respondents. The queries we used were;

‘antique lamps’
‘buy antique lamps’
‘buy lamps online’

We also asked them to tell us;

1. Where they’re located (region/country)
2. Which browser they’re using
3. Cleared search history lately?
4. Is personalized/search history on?
5. Most common Google app used
6. If they had searched for ‘lamps’ or furnishings in the last 60 days

The goal being to start understanding what may or may not be influencing the search result flux. While we had some questions to be answered, there was no initial bias (hypothesis) behind the analysis. It should also be noted that the entire collection process only lasted 4 days so that we could try our best to avoid any temporal anomalies.

Today we’re looking at the data from the US. At the end of the test period there was really only enough to do analysis on the US and UK markets. I shall post the UK data in the coming weeks.

US Respondent Stats;

What have we learned?

It’s a good question, one that I don’t think we have a definitive answer to. Let us remember this is but one query type in a limited set. Personalization is more likely to have an effect in a query space where the user is more active in. That being said, there were some interesting elements that emerged so far.

Much like the original round of testing, a year ago, we can say that there is no massive upheaval where SERPs are vastly different from one user to another. This much has been consistent in each of the (3) rounds in both informational and transactional query spaces.

Here are some notes on other questions we’ve had;

Secondary observations

Other notes;

PPC and Uni results. – it was also interesting to see how the Shopping results popped in and out. While it is beyond the scope if this research, they were interesting and far more irregular than the SERP flux. This does play into one’s placement in the top 10 and is something to look at down the road.

Indented listings came and went (on final query) – another finicky element were the indented listings. It seems those can be more finicky than the average flux/movement in the SERPs. Looking for this in the next round and digging deeper if it persists is another area of interest.

Click data – given the suspicions of query analysis and task related triggers, in the near future introducing random clicks on links (and return/bounce?) might be worth putting into the mix. We haven’t given many signals beyond merely a 3 query task. If we get more evidence of this being an element, deepening the tasks seems a likely next route (past further rounds like this one).

What does it mean for SEOs?

Once upon a time this journey began because I really wanted to know if ‘rankings are dead’ and if ‘everyone gets a different SERP’. A few of the age old, but poorly understood, questions of the search world. So, have they been answered? Well, sort of.

We shouldn’t be changing how we approach things ultimately… Above the fold is the real estate that’s prime (what else is new?). It may be the measuring that we will have to adapt. You will need to find ways to check rankings from a few locales and discern a mean average instead of a definitive placement.

What’s next?

We really have only touched the surface so far (with this round) and are going to want to start looking at a few more things including;

As you may have started to notice, there are still a ton of elements which are unknown. This is why I am still not making any major calls on what we’re seeing. Please bear in mind that we’ve only 2 rounds last year and one recent set of data. This really only begins to give us some insight; nothing more. The last thing we need are SEOs running around taking any of this as gospel at this point.

In the short term we’re going to sort the UK data from this round and I will be posting about that in the coming weeks… Stay tuned.

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Below are the top SEO tips and hints we posted last year based on your readership and comments. Google continued to be a key focus for most of you, but the surprise winner in our tips and advice section was Bing.

Yep – Microsoft’s search engine rebrand had everyone hunting around for ways to make the most of the Microsoft Bing buzz. Whilst some of the hype has subsided, Bing continues to deliver strong traffic results for many sight owners.

It’s always good to take stock of what you’ve learnt before you embark on your next journey – so enjoy these handy DIY pointers so you start 2010 on the right foot.

• 1. Bing SEO - How to Get Top 10 Rankings in Bing.com

The launch of Bing was probably the biggest news event of 2009, and it had many of you checking your SEO strategy to ensure you were making the most of its potential traffic.

• 2. How to Setup a Bing Local Listing for Your Business

Bing’s local search promised to offer genuine competition to Google local. While might not have delivered on the promise just yet, it had bricks and mortar businesses clambering to get listed in Microsoft’s latest Local marketing solution.

• 3. A Quick Shortcut to the First Page of Google

Good old trusty Google continues to the main prize for website owners and you were all still squarely focused on first page exposure. This post provided some handy tips to leap frog to the front page.

• 4. Link Building: 5 Simple Tips to Get Started

Link building continues to be the cornerstone of a strong SEO program, and you were all keen to discover Matt’s simple tips to get your link building started in the right way.

• 5. Claiming a Top Google Local Spot

While Top 10 exposure in Google’s organic results can take months, if not years to achieve – we showed you a few ways to get to the top of Google Local – which can also see you positioned at the top of Google’s main search results.

• 6. The Top 10 Small Business SEO Mistakes

SEO is a game of Does and Don’ts. Often the don’ts are as important as the does – so you were all keen to ensure you weren’t making some of the most common SEO mistakes.

• 7. The Top SEO Ranking Factors – 2009 Factors Unveiled!

And finally - the experts shared their top SEO ranking factors for 2009 via SEOmoz’s regular industry survey and you were all very keen to see what they picked as the key areas to focus on to ensure you were on track for Top 10!

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So, as you stare into the distance, wondering how to figure out if you are ready for search, what you really want to know is if your site is ready for customers.

Suppose you are opening a small shop on a busy street in town. What’s the first thing that you’d do? You’d order the best merchandise you could find. You’d make sure it was attractively laid out. You’d be positive that you had helpful employees to answer questions and to run the cash registers. In fact, you’d do absolutely every one of those things before taking out a big ad in the local paper, right? You’d never take the ad out if your store wasn’t ready.

But too often, that is what I see on the Web. Folks approach me every day asking for help with search marketing when the simple truth is that their Web sites aren’t ready for customers. The sites might be hard to use. Or have little information. Or have no way for customers to actually buy anything–no online buying and no easy way to move offline.

But still, they want search marketing. They are convinced that the problem isn’t that their Web site stinks on ice, but rather that not enough people are visiting. Trust me folks, if your Web site is awful, you want as few people to see it as possible. Not only won’t they buy from you, but they won’t come back. They might even tell other people how bad it is. That’s not the kind of word of mouth you are looking for.

No, don’t let this advice paralyze you. Some of us are our toughest critics. We see all the blemishes on our sites without noticing what’s positive. Your site doesn’t need to be perfect, but it does need to be good. If your Web site is no good, then sending more people to it won’t be the answer.

So, take a hard look at your Web site. If you can honestly say to yourself that folks arriving at your site can find what they need and figure out how to buy what you are selling (online or offline), and you have the sales to prove it, then you are ready. For you, search marketing really is a no-brainer.

But if your Web site causes customers to faint dead away, or call you on the phone to complain how they can never find anything, you have a bigger problem than search marketing that you need to solve first. Once you do solve it, then search marketing will bring you far more impact than you’d ever dreamed.

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