Alternative Search Engine Blekko Launches to Eliminate Spam in Search

Blekko's alternative search engine -- a $24 million venture-backed project that's been three years in the making -- is today launching its public beta. With the official rollout, Blekko is also releasing several new features designed for both mainstream and the site's super users.

As you may recall, Blekko is designed to eliminate spam search results, allowing users to search just a subset of the web through its proprietary slashtag technology.

The most significant upgrade to Blekko's search engine is the addition of slashtags that auto-fire for queries that fall into one seven categories: health, colleges, autos, personal finance, lyrics, recipes and hotels. Every time a Blekko user's query is determined to be in one of these categories, Blekko will automatically append the associated slashtag to the query and limit results to just the subset of URLs that fall under that slashtag.

The auto-fire functionality is designed with passive searchers in mind, and aims to eliminate friction for first time users. The technology that powers these auto-slashtags was developed through an extensive research and development phase that involved analyzing the relationship between queries and the type of spam results they typically generate.

Blekko plans to introduce auto-slashing for additional categories moving forward, but selected to launch with ones that represent a high volume of search traffic and are typically laden with spammy results. Health, lyric and financial queries on Google or Bing, for instance, will return results dominated by poor quality content farms or malware-hosting sites. Those same searches on Blekko yield results only from high quality sites.

Blekko's slashtag formula works because of passionate users who take the time to add and edit URLs for category slashtags. As such, the company has released new features to enable users to apply to be editors for slashtags as well as share their comments and feedback on individual slashtags. Think of this as the Wikipedia formula but applied to search, so a small percentage of users will work together to build out slashtags for the majority of Blekko searchers.

Blekko has been testing its solution to search with roughly 8,000 beta testers who have created more than 3,000 different slashtags. Blekko tells us that 11% of its existing user base come back to the site on a weekly basis. CEO Rich Skrenta and Founder Mike Markson have modest projections for the immediate future, but believe that once the site hits one to two million queries per day, it can be profitable.

Blekko is currently available on the web or as a mobile-optimized site, but mobile applications are also said to be in the works.

Source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20101031/tc_mashable/alternative_search_engine_blekko_launches_to_eliminate_spam_in_search

Smart SEO Formulas

1. Keyword CTR (Click through Rate) = No. of times your ad/search engine listing is clicked/ No. of times your keyword is searched.

For e.g. Let say your search listing on Google was clicked 2 times when the keyword ‘event management courses’ was searched 48 times. So CTR of the keyword ‘Event Management Courses’ =2/48= 4.17%
Note: A keyword’s CTR is a strong indicator of its relevance to the user and the overall success of the keyword.

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2. Ad CTR= No. of times an ad is clicked/No. of ad impressions.

For e.g. if your ad is clicked 20 times and is displayed 100 times, then your Ad CTR= 20/100=20 %

………………………..

3. Goal Value= Total revenue generated by a website in a given month/total no. of goals (conversions) achieved by the website in the month.

For e.g. Goal value

= £2,138.46/129 orders = £16.58
= £2,138.46/129 leads = £16.58
= £2,138.46/129 signups = £16.58
= £2,138.46/129 downloads= £16.58
= £2,138.46/129 page-views = £16.58

………………………

4. Conversion Rate of a website= No. of goals (conversions) achieved in a given month/ Total no. of visitors in that month.

For e.g. Conversion Rate

= 129 orders/8773 visitors= 1.4%
=129 leads/8773 visitors= 1.4%
=129 signups/8773 visitors= 1.4%
=129 downloads/8773 visitors= 1.4%
=129 page-views/8773 visitors= 1.4%
Note: You can also determine the goal conversion rate through Google Analytics.

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5. Traffic required to achieve desired goals = No. of goals required to be achieved/conversion rate of the website

For e.g. Traffic Required
=500 orders/1.4% = 35714 visits/month
=500 leads/1.4% = 35714 visits/month
=500 sign-ups/1.4% = 35714 visits/month
=500 downloads/1.4% = 35714 visits/month
=500 page-views/1.4% = 35714 visits/month
………………………..

6. Anticipated Revenue through SEO efforts = No. of goals required to be achieved by SEO * Value of each goal

For e.g. Revenue generated= 12000 orders * £16.58 =£198960

…………………………

7. Immediate ROI (Return on Investment) = Anticipated Revenue through SEO efforts – Proposed cost of the SEO project

For e.g.

ROI = [500 orders*24 months *Value of each goal (£16.58)]- £36000 = £198960- £36000 = £162960

…………………………

8. Actual ROI =  Immediate ROI*12= £1,872,000
{client will continue to get seo benefits at least for the next one year even without any seo}

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9. How much client is expecting in return = total anticipated revenue from seo efforts / proposed cost of the whole seo project

For e.g. £198960- £36000 = 5.53

…………………….

10. No. of goals required to break even = Total Marketing Cost of the website/ Goal Value

Note: Break even is the point at which their is no profit, no loss.

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11. Traffic required to break even = No. of goals required to break even /conversion rate of the website.

……………..

12. Cost per Conversion = Total Marketing cost / No. Of conversions.

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13. Revenue generated through Social Media = No. Of goals achieved through social media efforts * value of each goal

For e.g. Revenue generated through facebook = No. Of goals achieved through facebook * value of each goal

………………

14. Social Media ROI= Revenue generated through Social Media – (time you spent on social media * your salary per hour)

For e.g. Facebook ROI = Revenue generated through facebook – (time you spent on facebook * your salary per hour)

=50 * £16.58 – (34.12 hrs * £20/hr)
= 829 – 682.4 = £146.6

………………

15. Social Cost Per Conversion =  Total Marketing cost through social media / No. Of conversions achieved through social media

For e.g. Social Cost Per Conversion = (time spent on twitter * your salary per hour)/ no. of conversions through twitter.

………………

16, Bounce Rate of a web page = Number of bounces / Number of entrances

Bounces => Number of times visitors left the website from the landing page without browsing any further.

Entrances => Number of times visitors arrived on the website via the web page.

…………….. 

17. Bounce Rate of a website = Total number of bounces on all the web pages/ Total number of entrances on all the web pages

Read more: http://seohimanshu.com/2010/07/01/some-smart-seo-formulas/

Parameters in Google Algorithm

I am sure Googlers should be enjoying this: hardly can they say a word, there follows a wealth of guessed and speculations.

Domain: 13 factors

1.       Domain age.

2.       Length of domain registration.

3.       Domain registration information hidden/anonymous.

4.       Site top level domain (geographical focus, e.g. com versus co.uk).

5.       Site top level domain (e.g. .com versus .info).

6.       Sub domain or root domain?

7.       Domain past records (how often it changed IP).

8.       Domain past owners (how often the owner was changed)

9.       Keywords in the domain.

10.   Domain IP.

11.   Domain IP neighbors.

12.   Domain external mentions (non-linked).

13.   Geo-targeting settings in Google Webmaster Tools.

Server-side: 2 factors

1.       Server geographical location.

2.       Server reliability / uptime

Architecture: 8 factors

1.       URL structure.

2.       HTML structure.

3.       Semantic structure.

4.       Use of external CSS / JS files.

5.       Website structure accessibility

6.       Use of canonical URLs.

7.       “Correct” HTML code.

8.       Cookies usage.

Content: 14  factors

1.       Content language.

2.       Content uniqueness.

3.       Amount of content.

4.       Unlinked content density.

5.       Pure text content ratio (without links, images, code, etc).

6.       Content topicality / timeliness (for seasonal searches for example).

7.       Semantic information (phrase-based indexing and co-occurring phrase indicators).

8.       Content flag for general category (transactional, informational, navigational).

9.       Content / market niche.

10.   Flagged keywords usage (gambling, dating vocabulary).

11.   Text in images.

12.   Malicious content (possibly added by hackers).

13.   Rampant mis-spelling of words, bad grammar, and 10,000 word screeds without punctuation.

14.   Use of absolutely unique /new phrases.

Internal Cross Linking: 5 factors

1.       # of internal links to page.

2.       # of internal links to page with identical / targeted anchor text.

3.       # of internal links to page from content (instead of navigation bar, breadcrumbs, etc).

4.       # of links using “nofollow” attribute.

5.       Internal link density.

Website factors: 7 factors

1.       Website Robots.txt file content.

2.       Overall site update frequency.

3.       Overall site size (number of pages).

4.       Age of the site since it was first discovered by Google.

5.       XML Sitemap.

6.       On-page trust flags (Contact info ( for local search even more important), Privacy policy, TOS, and similar).

7.       Website type.

Page-specific factors: 9 factors

1.       Page meta Robots tags.

2.       Page age.

3.       Page freshness (Frequency of edits and % of page effected by page edits).

4.       Content duplication with other pages of the site (internal duplicate content).

5.       Page content reading level.

6.       Page load time (many factors in here).

7.       Page type (About-us page versus main content page).

8.       Page internal popularity (how many internal links it has).

9.       Page external popularity (how many external links it has relevant to other pages of this site).

Keywords usage and keyword prominence: 13 factors

1.       Keywords in the title of a page.

2.       Keywords in the beginning of page title.

3.       Keywords in Alt tags.

4.       Keywords in anchor text of internal links (internal anchor text).

5.       Keywords in anchor text of outbound links.

6.       Keywords in bold and italic text.

7.       Keywords in the beginning of the body text.

8.       Keywords in body text.

9.       Keyword synonyms relating to theme of page/site.

10.   Keywords in filenames.

11.   Keywords in URL.

12.   No “Randomness on purpose” (placing “keyword” in the domain, “keyword” in the filename, “keyword” starting the first word of the title, “keyword” in the first word of the first line of the description and keyword tag…).

13.   The use (abuse) of keywords utilized in HTML comment tags.

Outbound links: 8 factors

1.       Number of outbound links (per domain).

2.       Number of outbound links (per page).

3.       Quality of pages the site links in.

4.       Links to bad neighborhoods.

5.       Relevancy of outbound links.

6.       Links to 404 and other error pages.

7.       Links to SEO agencies from clients site.

8.       Hot-linked images.

Backlink profile: 21 factors

1.       Relevancy of sites linking in.

2.       Relevancy of pages linking in.

3.       Quality of sites linking in.

4.       Quality of web page linking in.

5.       Backlinks within network of sites.

6.       Co-citations (which sites have similar backlink sources).

7.       Link profile diversity.

1.       Anchor text diversity.

2.       Different IP addresses of linking sites.

3.       Geographical diversity.

4.       Different TLDs.

5.       Topical diversity.

6.       Different types of linking sites (logs, directories, etc).

7.       Diversity of link placements.

8.       Authority Link (CNN, BBC, etc) Per Inbound Link.

9.       Backlinks from bad neighborhoods (absence / presence of backlinks from flagged sites).

10.   Reciprocal links ratio (relevant to the overall backlink profile).

11.   Social media links ratio (links from social media sites versus overall backlink profile).

12.   Backlinks trends and patterns (like sudden spikes or drops of backlink number).

13.   Citations in Wikipedia and Dmoz.

14.   Backlink profile historical records (ever caught for link buying/selling, etc).

15.   Backlinks from social bookmarking sites.

Each Separate Backlink: 6 factors

1.       Authority of TLD (.com versus .gov).

2.       Authority of a domain linking in.

3.       Authority of a page linking in.

4.       Location of a link (footer, navigation, body text).

5.       Anchor text of a link (and Alt tag of images linking).

6.       Title attribute of a link.

Visitor Profile and Behavior: 6 factors

1.       Number of visits.

2.       Visitors’ demographics.

3.       Bounce rate.

4.       Visitors’ browsing habits (which other sites they tend to visit).

5.       Visiting trends and patterns (like sudden spiked in incoming traffic).

6.       How often the listing is clicked within the SERPs (relevant to other listings).

Penalties, Filters and Manipulation: 12 factors

1.       Keyword over usage / Keyword stuffing.

2.       Link buying flag.

3.       Link selling flag.

4.       Spamming records (comment, forums, other link spam).

5.       Cloaking.

6.       Hidden Text.

7.       Duplicate Content (external duplication).

8.       History of past penalties for this domain.

9.       History of past penalties for this owner.

10.   History of past penalties for other properties of this owner.

11.   Past hackers’ attacks records.

12.   301 flags: double re-directs/re-direct loops, or re-directs ending in 404 error.

More Factors (6):

1.       Domain registration with Google Webmaster Tools.

2.       Domain presence in Google News.

3.       Domain presence in Google Blog Search.

4.       Use of the domain in Google AdWords.

5.       Use of the domain in Google Analytics.

6.       Business name / brand name external mentions.