I have added the Google Blog Bar to the homepage here to give a test. See the right hand column towards to bottom. I used 3 key phrases; “SEO”, “Social Media” and “Internet Marketing”. You can select any of these and the search results displayed will update to the current results for the phrase.

The bar has been very popular and is been seen popping up all over the blogosphere. Google is listening to customer feedback and implemented changes already. The first Blog Bar update includes changes to allow a webmaster to select a specific site to be included in the results. The site restricted search “means that you can now create a Blog Bar and program it to only search over a selected blog”.

Many SEOs are steering clear of anything “AJAX” due to its issues with crawl-ability and content accessibility. I happen to be of the camp which understands there are very good uses of AJAX from an SEO standpoint. This happens to be one of them. I think AJAX is a very good tool to “hide” content which may be considered duplicate but is still very useful for your users. This will allow the engines to focus on the unique relevant content of your pages and ignore the cannon fodder which may be spreading rapidly across the Internet. Because this content is in AJAX, I am not a bit worried that it is probably replicated on 50 or 60 other SEO blogs by now.

Actually, in the retail world, his reasoning is quite sound. However it does not translate to the web very well at all. Here’s as close as I can come to his specific example. When you go to the grocery store and look for toothpaste, you find an entire section dedicated to the product. There are tons of varieties and versions that might entice any number of different customer profiles. From superhero themed toothpaste for the kids to the super sensitive brand for seniors who might need some extra care. The interesting part is that almost all of these shelves are filled with products from one 2 or 3 companies. Each one creates a variety of products to meet the various needs of the consumer.

His reasoning was if they can do this for toothpaste in a store, why can’t he do it online using a number of different websites? Technically he could. The problem and the reason this does not translate well to the web is the fact that most online retail website traffic these days comes from search engines. And the search engines are geared to make this type of multiple site strategy a very difficult proposition. If the grocery chain decided it wanted only one product from each manufacturer the two scenarios would be much more parallel.

This is not an impossible task, but to try and make multiple sites covering various portions of your market is a very labor intensive endeavor. Each site must be entirely unique and managed as a separate site including unique content and off site marketing efforts. All too often when traveling this path webmasters use one site as a template for another. This includes layout and in many case content. They incorrectly believe that changing a few keywords or pictures will distinguish the new site as an individual product ready for the search engine spiders. They are wrong.

In most cases it is much more beneficial to add new unique content to an existing site covering the various areas of your market. Not only is this more efficient from a management and labor standpoint, it increases the search viability of the primary site and will bring you more business quicker in the long run. Why? Again, because of the way the search engines are geared. The more content you have on your site, the more chances you have to get that content indexed and found by searchers. It is much easier to get new content indexed when placed on an existing site than it is from a new site. Additionally growing your current site buy adding new fresh content will please the search engines and you may find your site being indexed more frequently or even someday given the fabled “Authority” or Hub” status.

As a general rule, it will be more beneficial for you in the long run to spend your precious time expanding and fine tuning your primary web site. The engines want to list the best sites first. Think like a surfer sometimes too, would you rather find a bunch of mediocre sites or one great one. To answer the initial question here, “At what point does new content deserve its own domain?”. The answer is simple, when it’s hairspray and not toothpaste.

His Article: Our Columnist Creates Web ‘Original Content’ But Is in for a Surprise

Mr. Gomes writes about a new but growing problem in this industry, the legitimacy of “Original Content”. More and more website owners are realizing what we SEOs have know for some time, content is the one true measure of a websites indexability. Webmasters in groves are jumping on the content bandwagon, however many are too lazy or do not have the skills or funds to produce real original content. This is leading to the disturbing trend of modifying other peoples content to make it appear “original”.

Mr. Gomes enlightens us with his accounts of an attempt to do some freelance copywriting in his article.

My job, it became clear, was to make enough small changes to the text for Whirlywinds to be able to pass it off to search engines as his own. Which is, in fact, what most of the “original content” on these sites turns out to be: cut-and-paste jobs with superficial modifications.

This is one more problem we as SEOs will need to be on the look out for and Lee Gomes did an excellent job of bringing it to the attention of the WSJ readers.

Please don’t get me wrong, relevancy is still a huge part of the ranking algorithms. However, to combat the spammers and provide even higher quality search results, engines are starting to look harder at other factors to determine which sites should be placed at the top of the rankings. They are looking at “Page Quality” now combined with Relevancy.

“Page Quality” as a concept is a measurement of how well a page can represent the relevant content searched for by the surfer. This can encompass a variety of measurable benchmarks. Some probable indicators off the top of my head could include; code validation, text to code ratio, quantity and type of ads, page layout and the amount of content. As with relevancy issues relating to search algorithms, no one knows the exact factors which determine a pages “Page Quality” (PQ).

This has actually been going on for a while now in one form or another. Googles’ Page Rank (PR) system was an early shot at developing process to determine the quality of a page. It worked well for a while and propelled Google towards its current 500 lb Gorilla status. Then the Google Toolbar indicated a specific ranking of pages. The search spammers jumped on the PR band wagon and took a perfectly viable system and corrupted it beyond usefulness. Today PR is no more important than other basic SEO techniques. The importance of PQ is growing.

Need a concrete example? I found one over at Google’s AdWords of all places. AdWords has long used a two part system to rank ads in a results page. First part is how high the bid is for a specific term. This counts for 50% of the placement. The second was CTR or click-thru-ratio which was also worth 50% of the ranking score. CTR is a measurement of how many times an ad is clicked compared to how many times it was shown. 10% CTR means every 10 out of 100 visitors clicked on the ad.

Well in the past couple of months the CTR factor of the equation has been replaced with a factor called “Quality Score”. This includes a number of items related to the Quality of the ads landing page. Now if the worlds largest and most popular search engine can analyze a page to determine its quality from within is advertising system, wouldn’t common sense tell us they can and would do the same to their primary product; Search Results. My opinion is yes they do and will continue to increase its importance. The great thing about this, it when you work towards PQ, you are building a better website and most likely a web site which sells better. It’s a win–win situation.

Moving forward, relevancy will continue to become only part of the puzzle. New conditions will arise and when all is said and done “Page Quality” will be a primary concern. So when formulating your SEO Plans, keep this in mind and shorten those meeting room arguments on relevancy related topics. Start a few new ones on “Page Quality”.

Lets take our model and project it into the surfer’s point of view. I am a surfer and I have a goal, to “buy”� a product (as apposed to “sell” a product). I am looking at all the information that is “incoming” to my browser. I know I will get the best results if I focus my attention on the incoming info that most closely targets what I am looking for. The info that most resembles my needs will produce the best result (a sale). It’s a simple example, but I think you get my point, Targeted Content.

Ok, your are saying; “Yeah, I know that. What’s your point?” My point is, targeted traffic is all about what we need the traffic to be. We want a specific demographic, or traffic from a related source to ensure the surfer is already interested in our offering. Targeted content is all about what the surfer wants. Making sure the visitor is presented with information that is as close as you can get to what they need.

Think about targeting from their perspective every once and a while and you may find ways to improve your offerings and grow your online business.