Wolfram Directory Index Search Engine Optimizing (SEO) -- Tips Techniques and Tutorials

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Keyphrase Evaluation Tools for Seach Engine Optimization
Google Trends
Allows you to compare search phrases to see which have more volume.

Google's Keyword Suggest - - as you type a search term, Google suggests related words.

Lexfn - Type in a word and it gives you related terms and concepts.

Visual Thesaurus - Generates visual trees of related keywords, sort of like a mind map. You type in a term and rich word trees spring up. Then you can click on the next word and the next word and the tree continues to morph. There's a free demo and a yearly membership is a paltry $20.

buzz yahoo - Yahoo's answer to Google Zeitgeist See what's hot this week in the news and popular culture? Clicks always reflect the stories of the time.

Spy Intelligence
Sometimes it's quite useful to have an idea of what your competitors are doing on Pay Per Click, what keywords they're bidding on, what they're spending, stuff like that. Disclaimer: Neither of these tools provides a completely accurate picture but they're both very useful:

SpyFoo - Gives you a list of major keywords your competition is bidding on, an estimate of their daily budget, data about their organic listings, average bid position, and how many competitors they have. Rather insightful.

Googspy.com - A related technology, but presented in a different way. The keyword list it generates is incomplete but quite helpful.

General SEO Hosted Tools
gogorank.com
This site lets you see the google page rank. It's a Google pagerank tool for those who don't want to use the google tool bar.

Backlink Checker Tool
My new favorit. This free hosted application makes a list of backlinks to your domain and shows the page rank of each backlink, the anchor text and it lists how many outbound links are on the page.

SEO Software
Advanced Webranking
Allows you to track your keyword rankings and URL rankings both statically and as they progress over time for EVERY search engine. For Google, it uses the Google API to retrieve data and show your standings as well as your competitors. Lot's of features. It outputs reports and charts that you can show to clients to justify your billing time and effort. AND, it even works in OS X and Linux! Free 15 day trial, then it costs $59.

wordtracker
Wordtracker has a thesaurus, which includes misspelled words. So, for any term, they give you a list of similar terms and botches. Wordtracker costs $25 a week to use...or so.

SEO forums, newsletters and learning resources
Webmasterworld.com
Perhaps the best place to look for information on google optimization (plus google adwords, adsense, gmail and google everything. People from Google troll those lists and participate.

Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch
They have lots of newsletters and good archives.

Jill Whelan's High Rankings
She has a terrific weekly newsletter, and is a very refreshing voice; she advises people to stay away from gimmicks and hacks. Her mantra is that great rankings come from great content, rather than tricks (which usually get you in the end anyway).

trafficology
Deals with tricks and guerilla SEO. Some of the tips are very clever, and rely on social engineering more than chicanery:

searchenginewatch
a resource.

advertiser workbook
overture has put together something called "the advertiser workbook" which contains clear explanations about keyword advertising, strategy and planning that explains it all without your eyes glazing over -- much.

Resources About Google
Google Dance -- a complete description of the google index and page rank time...
Google Web Log -- a good place to find out more about Everything Google
This is the original paper that started Google
This paper broadcast Google's existence before it moved to the domain off Stanford's servers. Lots of good data and refs.

August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web -- an article about how google will win and rule over ebay and amazon -- a work of fiction?

General advice on improving search engine ranking (SEO):
My article on improving your rank in Google
http://www.searchenginepositioning-services.com/
http://spider-food.net/search-engine-themes.html

ads-links google tips
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine -- more info on google architecture and scalability.
More resources on architecture and scalability

Other Possible Resources
(I haven't checked these out much -- let me know if you have comments about these sites to add.)

http://www.adage.com/
Advertising Age

http://www.clickz.com/
ClickZ

http://www.marketingtoday.com/index.htm
Marketing Today

MarketingSherpa.com
Practical News & Case Studies on Internet Advertising, Marketing & PR
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2770

Search Engine News Journal
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

Search Engine Watch
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/_subscribers/article.php/2149011

Search Engine World By Webmasters For Webmasters The Voice of Online Marketing

MarketingVOX
http://www.marketingwonk.com/

ThinkAvenue
http://www.thinkavenue.com/

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