With all the current chatter about LSI and LSA I decided to re-emphasize something I dropped in a forum years ago : GO words. Not the Go Words defined here, but the ones I defined for myself when first analyzing Google’s love of semantic analysis. Sorry for re-using what appears to be already defined in the search world, but I didn’t know, and I was contrasting “stop” words which also seem to be named on top of an existing definition. (I didn’t say it would be easy).

Anyway, in SEO “stop words” were words which, if they appeared on a page, would cause that page to *not* appear in Google (either for the desired search or for all searches). A stop word was something like “rape”, which triggered some sort of filter and wreaked havoc with search inclusion back then. In those older days of SEO there were clear cases of unrecognized “stop words” causing pages to be dropped, and we SEOs found ‘em and removed them. There were secret lists of stop words, allusions to secret lists of stop words, and all sorts of miscshpellingsh of stop words in order to keep the concept in the on-page text without tripping the censors filters. Sometimes stop words applied to certain queries, where the presence or absense of the word influenced whether or not that particular page “qualified” for ranking for a specific query. It wasn’t semantic analysis but censorship filtering back then. Today, these stop words would be considered either hard coded filter criteria or theme triggers that trip semantic set dynamics such that whatever LSA Google is doing in the algo, it is influenced by the stop word. You can see hard-coded stop words in action today with AdSense, with a minimal amount of effort (no, I don’t think the search engine and AdSense censor the same ways).

Once Google disclosed the tilde operator, we could play around inside Google’s synonym engine and that is where I was investigating stop words when I discovered “go” words. Go words (to me, at that time) were words which, if added to your page, caused it to rank for a query or thematic set of queries. I’m not talking about keywords specifically, but related words. Page without it, rank #30. Add the “go word”, and it rises to #3. Repeatable; testable. Go words existed and when you found them and included them, you were rewarded.

Because I’m not doing much real “work” to write this post I don’t have any “go words” to show you. I won’t reveal those I work with currently, and since I have many years in the niche markets I work, it is probably true that I still use most that I know about. In other words, I don’t have any throw-away competitive advantages to give you. I will say that it’s not too hard to find them, especially is you have SEO experience in your niche. They key IMHO is to know that they are out there, so that you can test without wasting your time. That is what I am offering here. No, I don’t mean to suggest that Google synonyms are “go” words. Synonyms are great for working with sets, finding overlaps, and testing pages against the current Google search index “corpus”, but in my experience Go words are rare and not simply threshold-triggering synonyms. When you find some you can test that fairly easily and see if you agree.

Now are “go words” hard-coded, filter triggers, or do they merely tip the scales of LSA-like algorithmic features? My experience is they are hard-coded, because a few very specific instances are just simply amazing to witness. However, I really can’t tell a badly tuned algorithmic dependency (a.k.a. “sensitivity”) from a filter or filter threshold setting… nobody but Google can tell you those details. My view is they are truly “necessary yet not sufficient” conditions for ranking at least in some cases. I would expect that as LSA etc. matures within Google, such things will go away. That will happen slowly.

It is refreshing to find a black/white “signal” like this in Google these days. Everything has become so graduated, when you find something with binary-like impact on the algo it is fun to exploit. When hunting, keep in mind that it really doesn’t matter if you find a set overlap threshold you can cross with 4 specific words, or a hard-coded trigger tripped by a single word: you are after the effect - put in, rank, take out, lose rank. Don’t get academic and miss the benefit.

Threadwatch published a post from Todd Sims of Business.com, with Tom stating that Business.com is removing the nofollow attributes from all Business.com listings effective immediately. I tend to agree with some of the TW comments; that business probably dropped quite a bit when they added those nofollows, creating concern within Business.com about the value of the use of that attribute. Why muddy the waters if the gains are not sufficient to justify the risk?

Let’s just say rel=nofollow is yet another Google beta program. Do you adopt things when they are still in beta? Should you?

Business.com’s use of nofollow was reported previously:

• Business.com gets competitive with nofollow attribute
• Business.com use of nofollow clarified. Has Google spoken?

Someone calling himself “Daniel R.” has started a blog that explores the integration of Public relations (PR) and SEO. I call him “someone calling himself Daniel R.” because that is part of that I consider a problem with traditional PR when it says it wants to “get” the web. The web is largely about commitment. You need to blurt it out, take a stand, express your opinion, and be prepared to handle the consequences. And that handling of consequences will characterize you.

Daniel R. says he is a member of NetImpact, which he refers to as “a young professionals organization focusing on Social Corporate Responsibility”. I went and looked at the netimpact web pages because I am very much interested in social responsibility. I had never heard of NetImpact, but that’s not too surprising. On the web pages I saw a picture of a group of NetImpact “young MBAs” standing in front of a white truck marked “Food Bank”:

Now Food Bank sounds great. But what is that corporate logo on the truck? You know, the big red lettering? Right where it says CONAGRA FOODS? You know Conagra, one of the largest processed foods manufacturers in the world. One of the big players, often named alongside Archer Daniels Midland. Think genetically modified foods slipping into the distribution chain (search StarLink fiasco), think global corporations prohibiting farmers from saving their own seeds to replant, think food companies that seek to use chemicals in place of natural foods whenever possible in order to save pennies, when there remain significant unanswered questions about the safety of food additives, the safety of huge scale processed foods, possible connections between food additives and ADHD and other childhood disorders, etc.

Now I am not at all accusing ConAgra Foods of any wrong doing. And of course they are AT LEAST providing some sort of support to this Food Bank (at least the picture says so..). As a cynic tough,  I wonder what the tax writeoff was on the foods they donated to the food bank? As a marketer I wonder what that branding and “PR” was really worth… if they had needed to purchase it. As a human I wonder about the value of all of those high-energy MBAs volunteering to work for NetImpact. Hmmm….
Anyway the point is not ConAgra or NetImpact… the point is commitment. I welcome Daniel R. to the SEO space (as if I had any diplomatic role to play in the SEO space! Hah! Now that’s funny!). He’s only written a few posts, but his topics are good… Public Relations needs SEO, and SEO may benefit from working with Public Relations people. The question in my mind is, why should they? And why should I listen to Daniel R. If I don’t even know his full name?

SEO is fast moving and aggressive. SEO is opinionated, because as SEOs we see the real deal and work on metrics. We know what works, even though the web guy and the systems guy with 30 years experience might think otherwise. We know what will get results, even if the marketing department wants to wait until Nielson or Comscore say it’s ok. Perhaps most importantly, we want to be proven wrong, because if you can’t prove us wrong we know we are right. And if you can prove us wrong, all that does is enable us to fix what’s wrong and move ahead.

SEO is about metrics and results, which come with accountablity. Is PR too often about propaganda and cover up?  Does today’s crop of PR people have what it takes to run with SEO? Is that even a smart thing to do?

Here come the Cutlets, where are the nuggets?

Matt Cutts is a Google employee. He tried to be a leader among SEOs interested in Google, but has failed at that. Instead, he has gathered (some say created) a flock of hyper-aggressive, almost righteous “Cutlets” who listen to his gospel and fill his blog with oddly naive observations and “evidence” of sites that are breaking the Google rules.

They have become known as The Cutlets.

History repeats itself. A long time ago someone discovered that chicken tasted bad. It was a pinkish meat that basically smelled bad. A plucked chicken always looked dirty, because the farmer could never get all of the quills, and those left behind made the chicken look like it had a 5 o’clock shadow.

One day a farmer decided that if he could sell chickens, he could make a good profit because chickens were easy to raise. So he changed the feed to improve the smell and lighten the color, and started selectively breeding only the lightest colored chickens. Chickens breed quickly, and over a reasonable amount of time this farmer bred himself a flock of white chickens. When plucked, you couldn’t see the left-behind quills because they had no pigment. He started selling it as a replacement for beef, and it took off. Chicken was cheap protein. Cheap cheep cheep.

Chicken became synonymous with white meat. Go figure. It’s not white meat. Most of the chicken is dark meat. That’s simply how nature intended the chicken to be. In fact, the dark meat is where the action is — virtually all of the flavor and nutrients that chicken offers is in the dark meat.

Anyway over time the propaganda that created the white chicken led to chicken breast meat sold separate from the chicken (for a premium). Yes, people are always willing to pay more for breasts. These became known as chicken cutlets. Just the select breasts, chosen to represent the chicken which actually is a dark meat bird.

Now you may recognize that chicken cutlet farming is not a sustainable business. You can’t grow a cutlet. Putting that aside as an exercise for the reader (what happens to the rest of the chicken if your gospel praises only the cutlet), how does a cutlet promoter maintain his business? Enter the “tender”.

Chicken Tenders are basically chicken cutlets cut into strips. Initially, the “tender” was created as a marketing vehicle to sell that portion of the cutlet that contained an unsavory white, stringy tendon. Most people cut it off and threw it away. A propagandist re-named that piece the “chicken tender” and sold it separately, at a premium. Any Engineer (the real kind - the ones who went to Engineering school) can show you that surface area increases “exponentially” as a cutlet is sliced into pieces. Since each piece gets breaded all the way around, the amount of actual chicken decreases as breading is added to cover the increased surface area. And bread is far cheaper than chicken. So nowadays every restaurant in America sells these strips of chicken cutlet, usually breaded and deep fried, at an incredible profit.

But of course there is more to the evolution of the chicken people are eating today. The cutlet didn’t only spawn the “tender” (or “chicken finger”, oddly enough). Not satisfied with 6 ounces of small white strips of meat representing a 2.5 pound mostly-dark meat bird (reminder: what happened to the rest of the chicken?), they created the “chicken nugget“.

Chicken Nuggets are probably the most prolific form of chicken in the modern commercial food markets. McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s.. they sell far more chicken nuggets than hamburgers. The chicken nugget was marketed as the prime white portion of the chicken, at first, hence the reference to gold nuggets. Of course, we know it is really a mash up of all of those parts of that dark-meat bird that do not qualify to be chicken tenders or chicken cutlets. That’s right, the bones, beaks, wings and what not. The chicken nugget is the hot dog of the chicken world. Did you ever really look up close at what’s behind the secret recipe bread covering of your favorite chicken nugget? Yuck.
Of course no one with a taste bud would eat those things, unless you coated them with sugar. So now chicken nuggets are sold with.. “barbeque sauce“. Did you ever watch a chicken nugget lover pack his take out order with a few napkins, a straw for his coke, and a huge handful of “sauce”? Ounce for ounce, he’s eating more sauce and bread than chicken. Certainly more sauce than white meat chicken. But he’s paying a premium for that breaded crap. What a moron.

So Matt Cutts has begun breeding SEO Cutlets. History suggests the real profits are in the dark meat, where all of the volume and flavor is found. History suggests that those white meat advocates have an agenda, and the consumers of white meat harbor a secret insatiable appetite for dark meat covered in sugary goo.

Nobody knows how it will evolve, but one thing is for sure. When I decide to serve chicken at my table, it is an organic whole bird, roasted to perfection so the dark meat is properly juicy, the white meat is not all dried out (and is delicately spiced), and the only sauce available is the natural gravy one gets by serving only the best organic efforts. Nuggets are for fools, and cutlets are for sissies.

Jason Brown is an online marketing person and independent SEO consultant in Brandenburg, Kentucky. He has obviosuly spent some time dong SEO for clinets, because this rant is very, very true.

SEO is a process, and now Lee Odden highlights it for us again with a BusinessWeek reference. But really, SEO as a business is about managing customer expectations more than it is about ranking in the SERPs. And the more you talk about process (instead of rank) the more you are softening the demands on SEO consultants. The case study SEO managed the customer expectations well, and we will never know for sure about those SERPs. And guess what? It doesn’t matter.

The “new SEOs” are all about client expectations, while the “old SEOs” are all about performance. That’s also the root of the black hat/white hat debates, the tin foil hat wearing Google bashers, and the “ethical” whiners. It’s also why top SEOs will continue to work for themselves instead of clients.

Note: If you’re looking for the nastiest bloke in SEO, you’re in the wrong place.