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