Spock Research

Men three times more likely to brag about professional accomplishments then women

by Jay Bhatti on September 21, 2009

In a Spock Research study of 3 million corporate bio pages on the internet, Spock discovered that men were three times more likely to overly boast about their professional accomplishments then their female counterparts.

For example, men were 3.15 times more likely to have the words “accomplished”, “responsible for”, “served as” and “led” in their corporate bio page then women. In our analysis of corporate bio pages of people from similar industries and job titles, it did not appear that women were any less accomplished, just that they were less willing to place subjective terms like “led” or “responsible for” in their bio page then men.

However, when we looked at bio pages for educational information, women did equally if not better then men for terms like “graduated with honors”, “doctorate”, “certified”, or “graduated magna cum laude”.

What does this tell us? One hypothesis is that men seem to be more aggressive in marketing and promoting themselves online as opposed to women.

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Spock mentioned along with Facebook and Google in ZDNet

by Jay Bhatti on September 21, 2009

ZDNet UK - Where technology means business

Spock was mentioned as one of the leading compaines alongside Facebook and Google in ZDNet. Click here to see the article.

PDF of  ZDNET Article

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Spock mentioned in redOrbit Magazine

by Jay Bhatti on July 21, 2009

Click here to see that article about Spock and how it is changing the web.

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The Changing Rules of Google SEO

by Jay Bhatti on July 8, 2009

Penalty Type When Detail Actions You Can Take
Google Vince Update March 09 A Googler named Vince created this change and hence the name. This is not a penalty, rather an update in Google’s algorithm.  Vince update seems to favor bigger brands and has pushed some of these big name sites further up the rankings.

Google’s explanation is that, It is more about factoring trust more into the algorithm for more generic queries. From what Matt has said this update is probably looking at the overall weight and trust of a site (and the big brands have spent enough marketing pounds to win here) and the theme of the site.

 Do site awareness, and brand promotion, in addition to traditional SEO work.
Google -6 Penalty Late 2006 Google didn’t admit doing this to sites, per Matt Cutt. One possible trigger is that many of these sites have highly optimized pages tightly focused around a single core phrase or keyword.

Google now argues that the effect was caused by a glitch in the system and that an attempt to filter out bad sites had caught good sites in the process. Most sites should get their original rankings back soon.

 Do not overly stress on a single keyword.
Google -30 Penalty Introduced in late 2006, but Google starts to aggressively enforce it in mid 2009. A penalty widely-speculated given to thin affiliate, refer or doorway sites which do not add much value for the site visitors. However, many non-affiliate sites also have reported this penalty. Sites with excessive low quality inbound or outbound links and lots of non-unique content may have a minus 30 ranking penalty applied.

Syndrome: your well-ranked keywords (1st page) suddenly drop 30 positions.

Some of the practice below may help trigger -30 filter:

Guestbook spamming: If you try to get inbound links by spamming guest books and blogs then Google might apply the filter to your web site.

JavaScript redirects: JavaScript redirections might be misinterpreted as a spamming attempt. Better use 301 htaccess redirect if you must redirect URLs on your pages.

Doorway pages: Google doesn’t like doorway pages. If you must use special landing pages for PPC ads and other ads, make sure that these pages cannot be spidered by Google and other search engines. You can use robots.txt to do that

 The only solution to avoid this penalty is to have unique content on your site, get links from well trusted sites and link to high quality sites.

For detailed information, please refer to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Clean up the site first and submit a reconsideration request to Google.
Google -50 Penalty Sept 2009 Over-optimized key anchor text on link building. This is the most recent one that generates some discussions amongst webmaster and SEO sites.

Syndrome: your well-ranked keywords (1st page) suddenly drop 50+ positions.

Good article on this topic:

http://www.cemper.com/seo-knowhow/google-minus-50-penalty-cure

 De-optimize anchor text of back linking. Use natural languages, not keywords screaming SEO.

If you’re link building, make sure your anchor text varies on each site that links to you. You do not need to have keywords stuffed on every single link.

Use “nofollow” at times.

Clean up the bad practice first and submit a reconsideration request to Google.
Google -60 Penalty Mid 2008 Bad back linking practice: spam back linking or potential link farming.

It looks that Google applies this penalty to websites that buy links. Many of the websites that seem to have been penalized had many inbound links from websites that linked to them from every single page of their website (so-called site-wide links). Site-wide links are an indicator of paid links, which Google sees as an unwanted way to artificially inflate search engine rankings.

The head of Google’s anti-spam team Matt Cutts has often said that websites that buy paid links will be penalized and it looks as if Google tries to do the job properly. If this penalty for paid links really exists then even websites that follow Google’s rules can get in trouble. Your competitors could harm your website simply by buying links or by creating mini-net websites with sitewide links to your website.

Syndrome: keyword rank drops 60 positions.

 Avoid site-wide linking.

Sever links from bad neighborhood.

Sever links from low quality directory sites

Sever links from link farms

Avoid paid links

Build quality links from relevant and well-trusted sites

Use varied and descriptive anchor text on links that link back to your site.
Google -950 Penalty Jan  07 Spam Penalty, or Over Optimization Penalty. A much dreaded site or keyword drops 950 positions in ranking. Spam liking, spam documentation, content duplication, sloppy HTML that generates many validation errors.

Overall, Google 950 penalty is Google’s means to discourage webmasters from engaging in any kind of spam activity and subtly directing them to follow the ideal SEO.

Speculation:  it’s possibly related to the Spam Detection Patent invented by Googler Anna Lynn Patterson.

 Stop link farming

Stop SEO spamming (over linking, keyword stuffing, bad back linking, hidden text and links, cloaking, excessive redirect JavaScript, doorway…etc)

Provide unique and value adding content

Clean up first,  and submit a reconsideration request to Google
Delisted by Google A hacked or a pure spam site will be delisted by Google, meaning your site will be excluded from search results. Some of the proven reasons why a site gets delisted are:

1) Repeated spelling and syntactical errors.  If your website repeatedly contains a particular misspelled word, or it’s primarily made up of junk content (such as those computer generated content), you are at a high risk of being delisted from Google search.

2) Adding a large number of external links in a short time. One possible scenario is where your server is hacked and spammers add lots of links to your website without you knowing. Most of these links are hidden. You won’t see them unless you study the source code. Another possible scenario is when you are too active in link exchange. Let’s take link directories for example, most link directories will have an option for you to link back to them. If you spend one whole day exchanging links with 200 link directories, your website is at risk.

3) Sitemap error.

4) Hidden links and hidden text. Excessive use of both can get your website delisted from Google.  It’s cloaking.

5) Doorway pages that redirect visitors without their knowledge use some form of cloaking. This is against Google’s principle, which is “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.”

 Well, you just violated all possible Google webmaster guidelines. Start from scratch and rebuild your site.

Clean up first,  and submit a re-inclusion request to Google

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Jay Bhatti Discusses Spock Acquisition on ABC News

by Jay Bhatti on June 24, 2009

Jay Bhatti was recently in ABC News talking about the recent sale of Spock.com to Intelius – Check out the video here

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Jay Bhatti Interviewed By Media Post About Microsoft Kumo

by Jay Bhatti on May 21, 2009

Microsoft ‘Kumo’ Hot On Paid, Multimedia, Semantic Search

by Laurie Sullivan, Thursday, May 21, 2009, 5:58 PM     –     PDF | Link

As Microsoft readies the release of Kumo, some industry insiders wonder if new features in the Redmond, Wash. company’s long-anticipated search engine will come a little too late. Yahoo Thursday unveiled the Smart Ads platform to extend customized display ads on mobile phones. Google last week held Searchology, releasing a slew of services that pay closer attention to the way users view information. And then there’s newcomer WolframAlpha, the computational knowledge engine that attracted buzz by bringing up the search engine via live video online.

Microsoft’s drive to release a revamped engine based on enhancements in video and images to provide a more universal approach and semantic technology demonstrates that consumers are ready for something new, according to sources who asked for anonymity. The search engine also will likely integrate technology from the natural-language search company Powerset, which Microsoft acquired last year.

“If it’s as good as it looks in the demo, this will be the most impressive search experience Microsoft has offered,” says David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at 360i. “The focus is on the right areas such as organic results, layout and advertising.”

Berkowitz, one of the chosen few outside of analysts and Microsoft employees to get a briefing, took extreme precautions to select every word in describing his experience. He couldn’t speak to the difference in the way that Microsoft will serve up relevant ads in paid search campaigns, but did reveal that it has been a focus for the team with the launch of the new engine. “Historically, one problem for Microsoft has been serving up relevant ads,” he says. “They haven’t been as relevant as they could be. But I’ve see firsthand they are trying to fix that.”

Jay Bhatti, co-founder of the people search engine Spock, which Intelius bought in April, managed to catch a glimpse during a test run in Live Search. He says the ads seem to blend more with the content, which would make them less noticeable to consumers to generate more clicks.

The site appears to have an emphasis on filtering data and ecommerce that would give consumers product-related information such as inventory in stock and prices at specific retail stores, Bhatti said. A search for “iPhone” would also return links to download apps, for example. “On the left side of the search query you’ll find a navigation column that shows related searches, search history and filtering options,” he says. “It would keep the top of the page and right side clear for advertisements.”

Microsoft has been testing its search engine internally since March, but has not revealed when it would launch. Sources say it could be next week at D: All Things Digital, while others believe the teaser will announce another venue not too far off. The launch will also coincide with a major ad campaign.

Microsoft views search as an important piece to the company’s business, but Nielsen Online reported that the Redmond, Wash., company held a mere 9.9% of the U.S. search market, compared with 16.3% for Yahoo and 64% for Google.

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Jay Bhatti in E-Commerce Times about Yahoo’s New CEO

by Jay Bhatti on April 22, 2009

ECommerceTimes.com

Jay Bhatti was quoted by the E-Commerce Times about his thoughts on the Yahoo quarterly earnings call.

Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) announced Wednesday that first-quarter earnings fell by nearly 80 percent and that it will cut 675 jobs as CEO Carol Bartz struggles to revive the ailing Internet company.

The news was not generally jeered by investors, however. Between opening time Tuesday, when they stood at US$13.94, and mid-day Wednesday, when they stood at $14.88, Yahoo shares put on 94 cents, or 6.7 percent.

PDF of the Article

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Spock.com Taps Text Analytics

by Jay Bhatti on December 16, 2008

Seth Grimes of Intelligent Enterprise interviews Spock’s Andrew Borthwick.

Spock is a people-search engine, currently in beta release. The company uses “a combination of search-engine technologies and user edits to aggregate the world’s people information and make it searchable.” Think Google meets LinkedIn: Web search with accuracy boosted by allowing individuals to claim, augment, and correct information about themselves. (See the screenshot below, right.)

Click Here to read more

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YouTube’s Days are Numbered

by Jay Bhatti on December 3, 2008

I am going to make a prediction. Hulu will be the winner in web video. Not YouTube. Now, many will think I am nuts for saying this. Especially since YouTube serves over 5 billion videos a month in the USA alone. But, I believe YouTube will go the way of Netscape. A once powerful asset that commanded monopoly sized market share of the Internet that is now reduced to a bit player on the web.

I believe Hulu will ultimately overtake YouTube for the following reasons:

Advertisers prefer Hulu over YouTube - No brand advertiser wants their ads to appear next to content that is inappropriate, illegal, or just plain silly. Let’s face it. Many YouTube videos are either user generated (and we know how much advertisers hate user generated content, just ask Facebook and their challenges about making money), copyright violations, or so weird that no one wants their brand to be associated with that type of video.

While Hulu currently has a fraction of the traffic of YouTube and just launched less than a year ago, it is projected to do $70 million in revenue in 2008 in the USA. Compared to $100 million for YouTube in the USA. According to projections, Hulu will generate more revenue in the USA then YouTube in 2009. Even with just a fraction of the traffic! Why? Because advertisers trust the content on Hulu will be of high quality and shown in a fashion that will make their brand appeal to the user. Heck, when I watched Family Guy on Hulu.com last weekend and an ad came up that said “Family Guy Bought to you by Direct TV”, I actually said thanks to Direct TV for allowing me to watch Family Guy anytime I wanted. Any advertiser would pay through the roof for that type of brand love!

Consumers will start using Hulu more than YouTube - Every time I go to YouTube to find something, I encounter a lot of video spam (i.e. – video’s that make no sense to what you are searching for). You have to expect that on YouTube, since all the content is user generated in the first place. There is no way Google will be able to stop people from posting poor quality videos on YouTube. That’s what YouTube is about – “Broadcast yourself” – even if no one really wants to watch.

During this past Thanksgiving, I showed Hulu to my cousins back in New Jersey. They represent the normal web user. Once they saw Hulu and all the quality content they could watch on demand, they instantly loved it. They all said “this is much better then YouTube, it has real programs and movies”. Even a few days after my introduction of Hulu to them, they were still talking about it, using it, and even telling all their other friends about it. Now, that’s viral marketing. If users start making Hulu a destination site, then YouTube will be in a lot of trouble. At the end of the day, users want to see quality content such as movies, TV shows, and featured clips from movies and commercials.

Content owners prefer Hulu over YouTube - Google has taken notice of Hulu and is trying to emulate the site to some degree. Especially around getting more quality content on YouTube via partnerships with media houses and studios. However, YouTube will have a hard time convincing studios to get on board with them now that Hulu exists. Especially with the defiant attitude Google had with Studios and the issue of copyright violations when it acquired YouTube. I don’t think many studios and media giants really want to work with Google. Viacom was so mad when Google continued to show their copyrighted content on YouTube, that they filed a $1 Billion lawsuit against Google. In a conversation I had with a media executive, he told me that no one in the media and entertainment space was happy with the way Google treated them when it came to protecting copyrighted content appearing on YouTube. Because of this treatment, most studios will prefer to have their content on Hulu, which is a joint venture by NBC Universal and News Corporation. Two companies that have a vested interest in copyright protection and quality content.

Heck, some people in the media space go as far to say that Hulu could potentially help eliminate pirated movie downloads. They have a point. Why spend hours trying to download a poor copy of a movie from Bit Torrent when I could just watch a high quality version of it anytime I want on Hulu.com for free!

In a nutshell, if Hulu continues to be loved by advertisers, consumers, and content owners, it will become the site of choice on the web for video. YouTube will still be around. I do see a decent market for user generated video. But, the very nature of YouTube (social media, user generated content) limits how much revenue and interest it will get from advertisers. This in turn will limit its ability to get media properties to sign up with it. Why have your content on YouTube, when Hulu will pay you more for it since they generate more revenue from advertisers. If this is the case, then more consumers will go to Hulu in greater numbers for quality content as opposed to YouTube.

Hulu has built the right product and they have done a good job of making everyone in the eco-system happy. Advertisers, consumers, and content owners all get value out of Hulu. While YouTube is still king, I predict that within 18 months, Hulu will dominate video on the web.

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MediaBistro Takes a look at Spock.com for PR

by Jay Bhatti on December 2, 2008

Jason Chupick of MediaBistro takes a look at Spock.com

Click Here to read more

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