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Issue #2
13- 08-2003

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ABAKUS Internet Marketing Newsletter - Issue #2

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Editor: Alan Webb
email: nl at abakus-internet-marketing.de

Welcome to the second issue of the ABAKUS Internet Marketing Newsletter!
I hope you enjoy it, and if you find it of use or informative please pass it on to your friends and colleagues.

In this issue:

Editor Foreword
1. Search Engine Marketing News
2. Forums & SEO
3. Tool Tips: PR Reporting/Keyword Research
4. Newsletter information and press info

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Editors Foreword

The major news this month is Yahoo!’s $1.63 Billion deal to purchase Overture. Included in the package will be the search engines AllTheWeb (FAST) and Altavista. More on this major development in the news section.
Due to two weeks holiday, I haven’t done a great deal to the ABAKUS website this month. The German language forum is becoming more lively, and has exceeded the 5,000 post mark. The english language forum could do with some more membership so do please check it out and register.
ABAKUS were the first amongst all news sources to announce the birth of two new Google data centers www-gv and www-gv2. We were also first to report that the German Google News site had gone live (http://news.google.de).

ABAKUS has also been in the press with an interview given for the German ‘Tomorrow’ magazine, appearing in their August edition (pages 71-72).

This months articles cover the benefits of adding a forum to your website on SEO and tips on how to tweak ‘out of the box’ forum software into being very tasty spider food. Also covered are three tools which haven’t had the exposure they deserve, as they are very handy tools to say the least. And now for the news.

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1. Search Engine Marketing News

Yahoo! To Purchase Overture
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The search engine company consolidation continues. 'And then there were three' is the motto of the month really.
As far as search engine players are concerned, there literally will only be three left to fight for market share. Yahoo! (Inktomi, AllTheweb, Altavista) vs. Google, vs. MSN.

I guess you could include the Ask/Teoma search engines, but Teoma has most certainly not lived up to the hype It got at launch. MSN are deep into developing their own new search engine (http://beta.search.msn.com), with their own spider and algorithm. You can never write off Microsoft, but they have a great deal of catching up to do. I expect it take them at least a year and half before they gain any significant search market search, and that is even with them integrating search on most likely all their products in one way or another.

The deal, which is costing Yahoo! $1.63 Billion, is likely to be of concern to Google. Yahoo! have significantly increased their search market share and pose a real threat to Google now. It can not be long before Yahoo! drops Google from their normal SERPs. Yahoo! are spoilt for choice with search results to replace them with for sure! It will most likely be an Inktomi driven search engine however as they have had the longest time to play with that particular search technology.

Google launches German and French news service
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As first announced by ABAKUS, Google have launched a new German and French language news service. http://news.google.de + http://news.google.fr are born.

Long awaited, and very welcome for those countries web users. Sure to be the start page for many a browser.

ABAKUS discover new Google databases www-gv and www-gv2
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The new Google data centers are www-gv.google.com and www-gv2.google.com
The new centers appear to be based in Dublin, Ireland.

Google News Alert
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Google News just got better with a useful keyword based article reporting feature. Add an email address and keyword, and Google will inform you of the latest relevant news articles as they appear. I’ve tried it with “search engine” and it is working very well.
You can sign up here..
http://www.google.com/newsalerts

Freeserve drop Google
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One of Britains largest ISPs, Freeserve, have dropped Google in favour of an Overture/AllTheWeb pay per click and normal results combination. Google must be already starting to feel Yahoo! worm its way into its PPC and search market share.

Google Reports New Pagerank(tm) and Backlinks
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Just a couple of months ago the title of this news would be “August Google Dance has started”. The days of Google dancing over a week or so are however gone it seems.

What is happening however is that Google appears to have moved very quickly into a state of perpetual dance mode. Where ranking is calculated on the fly as well as PageRank and backlinks.
Although PageRank and backlinks are seen to be updating on the www-gv and www-cw servers, there appears at leas tin our test to be no movement in the SERPs on these updated servers. This indicates that the pagerank and backlinks are already factored in, and that this is just a case of Google making public the current pageRank and backlinks. In short this is not a dance, it is just Google telling us what has been previously, and what is currently, factored in as pagerank and backlinks. It is too early to be 100% sure whether Google already incorporates ‘Blockrank’, but it is looking increasingly that way. The SEO basics however haven’t changed. Keyword rich text combined with inbound links with optimal link text are still the way to go. The full implications of what appears to be a completely new update methodology, will be discussed next issue when more is known.

For current news and other stories, be sure to visit the ABAKUS Blog
http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/seoblog/ and the ABAKUS news forum http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/foren/viewforum/f-10.html

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2. Forums & SEO

The adding of a search engine friendly forum to the ABAKUS website, was probably the most singularly effective thing I did with regards to bringing in traffic to my website.

I can tell you that apart from the ABAKUS home page, the next most popular entry page to my site, by quite a wide margin, is one of the forum pages. With more than double the amount of the next best entry page which is my popular tools page, it is fair to say that without my forum, I would lose at least a third of my search engine originated traffic!

To give you an idea as to the power of forums, check out the following search term exactly as is it below in Google.

site:www.abakus-internet-marketing.de inurl:/foren/

The result you get is…
http://www.google.de/search[...]net-marketing.de+inurl%3A%2Fforen%2F

Each and every one of the ~8.900 pages indexed is a potential entry point to the ABAKUS site.

If you are impressed with that, consider how much search engine traffic Webmasterworld.com gets with over 58,500 indexed pages. Each of which is a potential search engine entry page.

http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&am[...]ebmasterworld.com+-fdjwshte

Don’t forget, no forum thread pages are duplicated and each topic will have its own specific title. What is really the clever part, is that others add most of the content/pages for you!

Once a search engine friendly forum is built, it doesn’t take long for it to grow to the position where each day 3-5 new pages with unique, commonly thematic, pages are created. I think you’d agree with me, that this has to be THE best way to create very many new web pages.

The aim of this article is to take you through the 10 steps that you need to go through in order to start your own successful search engine friendly forum. The subject you create your forum on is completely irrelevant, as long as it is search engine friendly, merits public discussion and you know how to market it (also covered), then within a month or two you are going to find you are getting gan increase in search engine traffic, and your forum is going to increasingly be the entry point to your website.

Step 1:

The first thing to do is to make sure you can install a forum on your web server. Commonly you require PHP, although some forums are PERL (CGI) based, and a popular database. The most common database is MySql which is supported by the majority of forums. Once it is established from your web host that PHP and a database are in place, you need to consider web space. A forum over time can grow quite large. Especially the database (ABAKUS database is well over a gigabyte now).

Step 2:
Choosing your forum should not only take functionality into account, but also the ability to modify it with a view to search engine friendliness.

Important: ALL forums that I am aware of require some modifications to make them search engine friendly!

A good list of the freely available and commercial Forum software can be found here …
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Bulletin_Board_Systems/Software/

In my experience, the best free forum, taking features and the abilty to make it search engine friendly into account, has to be PHPBB. Currently in version 2.0.6.

Probably the best commercial forum, with regard to power and search engine friendliness, is Vbulletin, which is the forum used by SEOChat.com for example.
Avoid Perl language forums such as Ultimate Bulletin Board (UBB) or Ikonboard. They are not impossible to make se friendly, but are considerably more difficult and less effective. I personally chose PHPBB because it had a large support forum and because there already existed details on modifying it with a view to search engine friendliness. PHPBB also has all the functionality, style flexibility and add ons (Mods) that you are ever likely to need.

Whatever your forum choice, check that there exists the possibility to make it search engine friendly.

Step 3:
Follow the installation instructions of your forum. If you have chosen PHPBB, then it is pretty straight forward as long as you know basic details such as your database name and database login details (username and password). Try and install your forum as close to the root directory as possible Eg. www.yourdomain.com/forum/ Instead of www.yourdomain.com/theme1/forum/. You may wish to name the install directory with a keyword if it is of a specific theme, such as in the example below.
www.gamesconsoleworld.com/playstation-forum/

Step 4:
Careful thought needs to be taken as to your category and particularly your Forum names. These should not be changed regularly so should therefore be given careful consideration and got right at the start. Needless to say you should name forums using your top keywords. If you only have the one or two main keywords, be sure to repeat them as forum names. An example on say a fictitious games console website might be 'Playstation Cheats Forum', 'New Playstation Games', 'Playstation Accessories', etc.

On most forum admin areas, you can give your forum a description as well. Again think SEO and choose descriptions that use your keywords… “Playstation and Playstation 2 Cheats and Walkthroughs.”

Step 5:
Although not vital for the optimization, you do need active, friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable moderators if you don’t want to do it all yourself. Have in mind who you want to moderate your forum and only pick those that aren’t afraid to start their own threads. This is vital if you are to get registrations. Most forums flop because the moderators/administrators don’t know how to do their jobs properly and don’t know how to draw new members into a forum dialog.

Step 6:
Once your categories and forums are named, and you have used the forum administration tools to get the ‘look and feel’ you like, it’s time to make the forum search engine friendly. This varies form one forum software to another. Each of the main forums however have their own support communities and many will have their own instructions on how to modify the forum to be search engine friendly. For PHPBB for example there is a huge support forum with threads on SE friendly modification, complete with easy to follow instructions. For virtually all forums, a main priority is to be able to kill the session ids for search engine robot visits. For PHPBB the following thread gives you instructions on how to accomplish this.
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=252424
Full discussion on the modification can be found here, it is a VERY long thread though. http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=32328.

If you install/already use versions between 2.0.0 to 2.0.3 then reply to this newsletter and I will personally send you pre modified phpbb files and instructions so you can not only have no session ids, but also the flat urls I have.

For Vbulletin, check out the following thread and also the ‘Similar Threads’ links at the bottom.
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62899
Flattening urls (no ‘?’ or ‘&’ in the url), is also possible on Vbulletin boards (See www.seochat.com). As far as I'm aware there is a need for Apache mod_rewrite to be available for vBulletin.

Step 7:

Once the forum is modified to be search engine friendly, in most cases that is all there is to it. You can however speed things along by adding features like “The last 5 Threads” on your home pages. This is not only a great way to get new members but also helps search engine spiders find threads for indexation. I not only did this on my German and English language home pages but also have, at least for my German language forum, a special url which acts as a feed for Google on all the threads…
http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/foren/list.php

If you are interested in the code just reply to the email and I will send you the file for free.

Step 8:

Once the forum is search engine friendly, and you have done all you can to help the spiders find it, now what you need to do is attract new membership and get people posting in your forum. A good idea is to start a thread in each of your new forums which end in a question or at least definitely invite an answer. You can start for example with a controversial subject which some guests may feel strongly about and feel the urge to become a member and post. Other ways are to post in usenet with your forum in the signature. Be sure you post something useful and don’t just plug your new site/forum! It is normally best in fact to answer someone’s question proving you are knowledgeable in your subject, rather than start your own newsgroup thread. In time, once you’ve gained respect, you can then mention your forum in a post. Create a ‘NEW’ link on your webpage in a prominent place. Get a few friends to help you start it up. Don’t contrive questions and answers, just ask them to honestly ask question they may have or add comment as much as possible. Once a forum gets started, then you normally find it will grow and grow as long as you’ve got the right moderators or you yourself have good communication skills. There was a time when my German forum got only two or three new posts a day. It is now averaging around 40-50 new posts per day.

Step 9:
Think SEO when you are starting threads and answering them. Use thread titles that use your keywords. The same goes for replying, get your keywords in there. As admin or moderator, don’t get into the “what do you think?” as a thread title way of posting. Far better is “Opinion please on the Playstation 2 Mod Chip”.

In short, always think SEO when titling new threads and when replying as well.

Step 10:

Be patient. Google will take its time, but will get around to indexing all your pages within a month as long as you have it correctly linked up from your other pages. Every page on your main website should link to your forum either as a footer link or in the normal navigation. Be sure you have very knowledgeable Moderators and make sure they are active in posting at least two to three new threads per day.
It will take about 2 months, but then you will find traffic from search engines landing onto your forum pages. VERY important is to give a visitor that landed on your forum page the chance to easily get to your main website home / product pages. PHPBB by default does not install a ‘home button’ for example, so I added one on mine. I also added full navigation in the footer of my forum as well. A good exercise is to take a look at a thread and think as if this was the first page you came to on your site and you now wanted to find out more. Is it obvious and easy to get to your main pages?

It is work, but from start to finish I could personally install a search engine friendly Forum, with no session ids for Google and flat urls in under an hour (I have done it a couple of time before mind).

With just about all forums, there is a way to flatten urls using what is known as the Apache Mod_Rewrite function. This is not for the inexperienced, but is something I am writing a stand alone article on, and it will be released within hopefully the next couple of weeks. It is essentially “An idiots guide to Mod_Rewrite” and will help all those with very unfriendly urls such as dynamically generated shops and content from CMS systems etc.

If you would like to comment on this article then please join in on the following thread. Forum membership is free and painless and you wont be bombarded with Spam either.

http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/en/forum/viewtopic/t-169.html

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3. PR reporting / Keyword research

PR Reporting:
There is a little known online tool that is amazingly accurate at providing a PageRank value WITHOUT the toolbar. Very naughty, but also very nice :-)
Enjoy it while you can…
http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/pagerank.php

Also on the subject of PR reporting, there is a way to find out what your upcoming Pagerank will be during a backlink/PR dance. This is also very naughty and you use this tool at your own risk (Google may block your IP).

http://www.abc-actu.com/abc-pr.html

On this page click the “Téléchargez la version béta 0.95” text link to download.

It’s a French language tool but you don’t need a French language degree to work out what you have to do.

Url in the field and click on ‘Zou!’ is about all there is to it.

Not all Google servers are available, but enough to give you a heads up at PageRank update time (as I’m writing this article).

To discuss these tools please join in on this thread

http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/en/forum/viewtopic/t-170.html

Keyword Research:
Chris Ridings, known for his excellent paper on PageRank and for administrating the forum searchguild.com (where I also moderate) has developed a rather fine tool known as “Even Better Keywords 2.0”. It is currently at the public beta stage of development and can be downloaded as well as feedback given on the following page... http://www.searchguild.com/tpage761-0.html

The tool is very good, so I’d get in quick before money needs to change hands for it!

BTW, note that Chris’s forum is also a modified PHPBB forum (with mod_rewrite). Chris has managed to make the urls shorter than my own effort, and therefore even more SE friendly (the swine! ;-).

To discuss this tool, don’t go to my forum but please do register and join in the thread above.

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4. Newsletter information / Press

You can pass on this newsletter, publish it in part or in its entirety under the one condition that full accreditation is given (Name, Company, and home page link). Any online incoming links must contain as link text “ABAKUS Internet Marketing” or “Search Engine Marketing”.

Members of the IT or internet press can receive full details about ABAKUS and Alan Webb upon request. Alan Webb is experienced in writing on search engine marketing and would welcome any press interest with a view for exclusive articles.

Alan Webb
Editor and owner ABAKUS Internet Marketing
http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/en/

Copyright (c) ABAKUS Internet Marketing

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