Danny Sullivan has made a thought-provoking post concerning possible changes to the Google Search engine. It is about some testing that has been seen by some users. Do visit his site to read the details and see the images, but here is why some of these changes could be relevant to SEO:

1. Enhanced Listings. Citysearch (US version) is supplying restaurant ratings to Google. I can’t see this test yet, but reading between the lines tells me that restaurant site owners may need to get into Citysearch and/or supply some restaurant data in a structured manner.
2. Pagelinks. This is a new term coined by Danny. He is seeing search results where the snippet includes a “Jump to” to an anchor link on the same page. In the example search of “monopoly rules property” the destination page contains a menu at the top left, where the word “property” links to rules about that topic lower down the same page. This tells me that we may need to insert more anchor links where possible and it makes sense to do so.
3. Automatic Spelling Correction. I can see this test in Australia. If you type what looks like a spelling mistake, Google shows the top two results as the best “Did you mean?” guesses. The SEO implication is that we now have yet another SERP where the #1 natural result has been pushed down the page.

Popularity: 11% [?]

If you haven’t booked a room for your visit to CES 2009 in Las Vegas, you can’t go wrong at $139/night (plus taxes) at the Wynn. The discount coupon code is RHHED07. [No, I don't get a commission from them]

Here is a direct link to the Wynn Reservation form.

The rates are valid for the month of January but the cheapest rooms at $129 are gone for the CES period. Suites begin at $149.

Popularity: 15% [?]

CntrStg is a big improvement (at least in terms of location) over other blogger activities held in previous years. The venue during CES 2009 is the Wynn hotel, just a short walk from the LVCC. Check out the CntrStg site for details.

It’s a place where bloggers can blog (obviously) using a fast connection and meet others, including vendor reps. The companies presenting there have been requested by the attendees, so there will be a stong affiliation and a better outcome for both parties. Speaking of parties, there will be a few held at this location, but you must register in advance.

It’s the first CES I will miss, as I used to be sponsored by my user group or Microsoft over the years.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Check out Mauricio Freitas’ Geekzone.co.nz and look for the HP competition that he’s running along with a bunch of my other friends from the Windows Featured Communities gang.

The competition doesn’t require you to visit all “50 of the world’s top bloggers“, but you increase your chances of winning up to 50 prizes if you do.

In fact, this competition has been running for a while, but I just found out about it, so some of those 50 sites have ended their competitions. My former work colleague at RingCentral (to whom I consulted remotely), Gina Hughes owns Techie Diva, which has a handy list of the closing dates.

This has been a great marketing win-win for both HP and the 50 sites that will get additional sign-ups.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The major networking event of the conference was Pubcon, which was held in the Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas, at 4510 Paradise Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89169. It ran from 1:30 to 5:30 pm. Beer flowed freely in large, heavy steins and was tempered with snippets of sausages.

This was a great place to meet other attendees in the industry. Most of the corporate attendees had left, so that they could enjoy the whole weekend at home, leaving behind just the serious networkers. Almost everyone had time to chat and pose for photos with Matt Cutts.

The WebProNews Video crew was there and filmed some of my co-speakers - Bill Hunt and Bruce Clay. I took the opportunity to interview cameraman Roger Akers - a chat was more like it. He showed me the video camera he uses - it costs over $14,000. As you will see in his Matt Cutts video below, the directional microphone did a great job of cutting out the background roar.

Roger is also working on a feature film with another professional, but he could not reveal the plot. I wished him well on that venture. I mentioned that my son Keith is studying film-making at university, so I had more than a passing interest in his profession.

In the video interview, Matt Cutts repeated the points he made in the Search Engine Smackdown the previous day. Ranking isn’t “dead” per se, but it will be less important because of Universal Search and how using video, audio and other elements will help sites rank on the first page.
More WebProNews Videos

Matt showed an HTC G1 phone running Google Android. It looks good but it’s too early to say if it will do better than the iPhone.

Lots of people were lining up to be photographed with Matt, including myself. - Stephan Spencer from NetConcepts (left) was also there - not that he lined up for a photo but I asked Matt to pose with him.
More Pubcon photos at Flickr.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Satya Nadella

The keynote address was delivered by Satya Nadella of Microsoft Live Search.

E-Commerce and Shopping Cart Optimisation

• Rob Snell, Ethan Giffin, Jimmy Duvall
• moderator: Joe Laratro

Contextual Ad Program Vendor Roundtable

• Microsoft Representative, Shuman Ghosemajumder, Derek Brinkman, Tony Wills
• moderator: Heather Lloyd-Martin

Getting Rid of Duplicate Content Issues Once and For All

• Rahul Lahiri (no show), Derrick Wheeler, Ben D’Angelo, Priyank Garg
• moderator: Rand Fishkin

Ben D’Angelo from Google cited how they handle duplicate issues. They have many systems for de-duping URLs at various stages in the crawl/index pipeline. They cluster pages, then choose the best representative cluster. There are different filters for different types of duplication. Your site is not “penalised” - simply, a duplicate page will not rank high.

How can you avoid dupes?

• For exact dupes - use a 301, such as in tracking URLs, www vs non-www situations.
• Near duplicates - use noindex / robots.txt, such as in printable pages, PDFs, clones of other sites.
• Country domains - a new language is not a dupe. Add unique country content. Use ccTLDs.
• URL parameters - if data does not affect the substance of the displayed page, put it in a cookie.

How can you avoid duplication by another site?

• If distributing articles, show the original, absolute URL in the content.
• Syndicate content that is different to the version on your site
• If you use others’ articles, manage your expectations
• Scrapers and proxies won’t affect you too much, but if you are concerned
  • File a DMCA request
  • File a spam report

Best way to reach Google - Webmaster Discussion Group

Domain Names and Trademarks - Legal Issues

• Deborah Wilcox, Clarke Walton, David Naffziger
• moderator: Melanie Mitchell

Deborah Wilcox, from Baker and Hostetler, gave a sobering account of the “Million Dollar Domain Case”. In this incident, the plaintiff was punchclock.com. They made software to record worker hours and to calculate payroll deductions.

The defendant was punch-clock.com, a Canadian company that sold into the US and made a similar product. It ranked higher in a search and the company ignored a C&D in 2001.

There was a Florida lawsuit in 2007. The defendant defaulted, so the judge ruled in favour of the plaintiff. In brief, the defendant had to transfer the domain name and pay over $1,000,000 in damages and corrective AdWords advertising for seven years!

CSS and HTML Coding Today

• Ted Ulle, Marc Juneau, Bryan Gmyrek, Lachlan Hunt
• moderator: Lawrence Coburn

Bryan Gmyrek gave examples of how you can work with datafeeds with the help of PHP, Perl and databases.

Interactive Site Reviews : Focus on Organic

• Byron White, Scott Hendison, Bruce Clay, Jessie Stricchiola
• moderator: Dixon Jones

Podcasting and Podcast Optimisation

• Glenn Gaudet, Jay Berkowitz, Cindy Turrietta, Tim Bourquin
• moderator: Joe Laratro

Learning To Love Your Quality Score

• Michael Stebbins, Jason Cooper, Mary Berk, Dan Sundgren
• moderator: Brad Geddes

Linkfluence : How To Buy Links With Maximum Juice and Minimum Risk

• Rand Fishkin, John Lessnau, Aaron Wall
• moderator: Todd Malicoat

Mostly Viral Top Traffic Alternatives, or SEO on a Shoestring Budget

• Brett Tabke, Marty Weintraub, Jessie Stricchiola, Gary Kirk
• moderator: Carolyn Shelby

What Every Webmaster Should Know About Code Installation

• Marc Juneau, Bryan Gmyrek, Ralf Schwoebel, Todd Keup
• moderator: Jake Baillie

Interactive Site Reviews : Focus on E-Commerce

• Rob Snell, Ethan Giffin, Bob Rains
• moderator: Rob Snell

Top Secret Tools of The Trade

• Todd Malicoat, Rand Fishkin, Jessie Stricchiola
• moderator: Joe Laratro

Optimising Your Site for Contextual Ads

• Matt Daimler, Jaan Janes, Aaron Wall
• moderator: Jon Kelly

Optimising Your Site for Contextual Ads

• Matt Daimler, Jaan Janes, Aaron Wall
• moderator: Jon Kelly

Real-World Low-Risk, High-Reward Link Building Strategies

• Eric Enge, Rebecca Kelley, Roger Montti, Greg Hartnett
• moderator: Chris Tolles

Effective Domaining Strategies

• Jeremy Wright, Jeff Libert, Jay Berkowitz, Victor Pitts
• moderator: Michael Bonfils

Information Architecture : Design Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make

• Scott Fegette, Ted Ulle, Daniel Schulman
• moderator: Heather Lloyd-Martin

Organic Site Reviews

• Greg Boser, Todd Friesen, Jill Whalen
• moderator: Tim Mayer

In-House SEO, PPC, and Campaigns

• Jessica L Bowman, Allison Fabella, Ana Schultz, Jill Sampey, Dan Perry
• moderator: Melanie Mitchell

Taking Your Analytics Data Beyond the Page View

• Shuman Ghosemajumder, Geoff Mack, John Marshall
• moderator: Joe Laratro

Geoff Mack from Alexa Internet introduced Alexa Research, a new competitive analysis tool in beta release. It shows your web competitors, their success and where they get traffic. You can see their visitor demographics, the upstream and downstream sites, the shared audience, the top URLs, and so on.

You can drill down quite deep and get down to a specific category, whether the site accepts ads, where the company is based, and more. Want to find sites that target a certain demographic, such as a Midddle Eastern female aged 55-64 and living in a certain country, who went to graduate school, and browses from work! If you are fussy, you only want to find a site that has a certain minimum pageviews, minimum monthly growth, etc. Alexa Research can do it.

Sign up for the beta at http://cardea.alexa.com/

Community Hacking - 96 Baiting Strategies You Can Employ

• Todd Malicoat, Ian Ring, Bill Hartzer, Jane Copland
• moderator: Andy Beal

Ian Ring had an intriguing title for his presentation, “Optimising Conversion using Genetics”

Equally as challenging was his assertion that your stylesheet can affect optimal user behaviour. CSS can determine how you display links. Ian introduced “Genetic Algorithms” where user behaviour, namely, clicks could be used to weed out poor CSS values and strengthen favourable ones.

In this ecosystem, survival of the fittest requires a measurement of fitness. This can be any measurable action, such as a click, a transaction, subscriptions, and so on.

For more information, visit http://biostyle.ianring.com/

The Wonderful World of Widgets

• Lawrence Coburn, Peter Adams, Patrick Sexton, Will Price, Peter Yared
• moderator: Jake Baillie

Forums and Communities : Building, Management, and Optimisation

• Chris Tolles, Lawrence Coburn, Roger B. Dooley, Brett Tabke
• moderator: Brett Tabke

Interactive Site Reviews

• Matt Cutts, Nathan Buggia
• moderator: Greg Boser

Super Session : Search Engines and Webmasters - aka: The Search Engine Smackdown

• Matt Cutts, Sean Suchter, Nathan Buggia, Erik Collier
• moderator: Brett Tabke

Matt Cutts

Popularity: 30% [?]