Welcome to SageRock.com Web Marketing Blog

I’ve been looking for just this stat. These are numbers from 2003, so the change is probably quite significant now. But it is still pretty interesting:
Internet Use by State

OK. For those of you who are watching this sort of thing, we are now in Stage 2 of the Jagger, October Update. There is supposed to be a third and probably final update in another week. You can read what Google engineer, Matt Cutts has to say:

Matt Cutts: Jagger 2 Update Info

Joel Cheesman has a link to Skaffe.com, a directory that’s having a $2 listing sale. It’s a good deal and worth the time and 2 bucks. Check it out:
Cheesman’s Online Recruitment Blog: no-brainer, $2 backlink

If you haven’t heard, Adwords has a new keyword popularity tool. I wanted to give you some links to content about it. Today is Rocky’s birthday, so I’ve been really busy setting up some fun things setup for her and haven’t had a chance to check out the tool in detail.

But it looks promising.

Here are some links:
Search Engine Watch Forum:
New Keyword Popularity Tool Debuts in Adwords Accounts

a href=”http://toprank.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-updates-adwords-keyword-tool.html”>Online Marketing Blog: Google Updates AdWords Keyword Tool screen shots

Google Adds New Keyword Research Tool at Search Engine Guide

That’ll get you started.

Check out this article about getting content on your site:
Free Content for Your Small Business Site

Jennifer has some good ideas here as how to quickly add content to your site. I’m all for it. But keep in mind that this is not going to be a tremendous asset as far as search engines are concerned. They are continually beefing up their algorithm to remove duplicate content from their listings of popular key phrases.

If you want good search listings, original content is the name of the game. It always has been and always will be.

But if you are looking to be a super resource for your visitors, then you should consider Jennifer’s recommendations.

I feel it’s important to discuss this current Google Update. It is turning into a major shift in the Google listings… at least at this point.

You might check your log files for the last couple days and see if your Google traffic has changed substantially. As an example, SageRock.com is currently getting almost no traffic from Google. On Friday, October 14 it was our number 1 referrer and now it is not on the list. I will say that we are still getting traffic from the Google Blog search but that’s about it right now.

There is no official word as of yet, as to why this is happening. The only semi-official word is coming from Matt Cutts who feels that this update will happen over several weeks.

Many, many sites are experiencing this drop in Google. If it is happening to you I currently recommend that you do nothing. I repeat, do nothing at this point. The feeling is that there will be a correction at Google. We’ll just have to wait and see.

In many ways, this is a good thing. If you currently rely on Google for most of your business, now is the time to start thinking of other ways to diversify your traffic. Look to getting more traffic on Yahoo and MSN. Look to get links on respected vertical portals in your market. Become a respected vertical portal in your market. Relying on the free traffic of Google for all of your business is highly risky.

I’ll keep an eye on this update and let you know if we find out anything new.

If you are interested in all of the details, there’s a good analysis and speculation by Michael Martinez here:
Notes On October 2005 Google Update -> High Rankings? Search Engine Optimization Forum

Matt Cutts, a Google engineer has a couple posts here:
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO ? More weather reporting
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO ? Update Jagger: Contacting Google

To make matters worse (in a the-world-must-be-ending kind of way) Webmasterworld is done and has been down for some time. That’s unfortunate being that they get the naming rights to each of these updates. Fortunately, you can get to WMW here:
Google Update Jagger Continues

Well that’s nice to hear.
Yahoo Drops $20 Monthly Minimum Spend Requirement

This is great!
If you are a blogger run right over here and read all about blog usability…
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)

This is about as official as it comes. There’s a new Google Update… Update Jagger and here’s Matt Cutts’ take on it. He’s a Google engineer:
Matt Cutts - Update Jagger

For some reason, this is interesting to me.
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