Dana last week wrote about the new SEOmoz experimental tools for LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation).

Rand has now followed up with a clearer description of what their tool is.

I played around with the tool a little and there was some discussion on Sphinn in relation to another post about it.

At that time I expressed some concern over the randomness to friends, but let that slide. I was a little more concerned that this was announced as being available, and at the same time in my email box I was receiving notifications that now was the last chance to upgrade to a SEOmoz Pro subscription.
Rand in the Sphinn conversation was asking for people not to review the LDA tool based on information currently available, and to wait until Tuesday when he would have a more detailed post available.

So on one hand we have price scarcity… a viable marketing strategy but a request/suggestion not to review the new fangled 3rd generation keyword density, latent semantic indexing (LSI), LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) tool that was causing a lot of positive buzz.

I love the passion in the article, but I’d ask that we have until our public release on Tuesday to explain what it does, how it calculates, the models, math, etc. I won’t try to address criticism until then.

So that is point 1 – suppressing objective reviews based upon available information whilst using price scarcity sucks.
I did delay this post and wait, but only because I wanted to see the official claims before this next point.

So now we look at the tool itself and see if it has some kind of useful application. I mentioned random results.
I thought about using lots of screenshots of every test, but then I decided the exact test I performed doesn’t really matter.

55%, 49%, 59%, 52%, 56%, 57%, 55%, 57%, 67%, 57% = correlation?

Dana mentioned in her post the “random Monte Carlo algorithm”

Rand was a little more specific:-

Scores Change Slightly with Each Run
This is because, like a pollster interviewing 100 voters in a city to get a sense of the local electorate, we check a sample of the topics a content+query combo could fit with (checking every possibility would take an exceptionally long time). You can, therefore, expect the percentage output to flux 1-5% each time you check a page/content block against a query.

I would need to run a lot more tests, but on my “swingometer” I have a variation of 18% just from that small sample. If I could define a mid point of that small sample, it would be in the mid 50s, which might suggest I hadn’t seen the worst of it and that at least 20% variation is possible.

Rand seems to be claiming some kind of correlation in his blog post title.

Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Google’s Rankings are Remarkably Well Correlated

To claim correlation he would have had to have run each page through his LDA tool maybe 100 times to get some kind of reasonable average.

So point 2 is that the results currently being portrayed as some kind of correlation could well be bullshit based on the extremely unreliable results from the LDA tool.

The final point is a little about data.

SEOmoz have a history, possibly a little unfounded of making huge claims about things and then being picked apart. An interesting situation for instance were claims about the source of their data for Linkscape. Sebastian covered it and did Michael (actually quite a bit)

Linkscape data is used by services like Open Site Explorer and many 3rd parties via their API. It is useful… the point is that data has to come from somewhere.

“The Rising Tide Lifts All Boats” – as long as it lifts you higher than your competitors

In the case of using the SEOmoz LDA tool effectively, one option is to enter a website address (that is what I was testing) – then you might run 10, 50, maybe 100 views of that page to get reliable data.
Then you would do the same with 10 of your competitors.

All the time you are showing the keywoord that a particular page should rank for, possibly one of your own, and also comparing it to the pages you feel it should compete against.

As far as business data is concerned, that is pretty useful. I know that SEOmoz will certainly claim that any data collected is only used for improvements in the tool.
In fact SEOmoz do include a statement on their main website regarding tools data.

What Tool Usage Information Does SEOmoz Collect?

SEOmoz offers a variety of online tools and software. These include, but are not limited to, our free SEO tools, our paid SEO tools, our API, and our tools on OpenSiteExplorer.org. These tools require you to enter a variety of information, such as URLs, domains, keywords, or other items relevant to Internet marketing and link research. We associate this information with your account in order to provide useful features, identify and terminate accounts that violate our Terms of Service, to improve our products, and to provide customer service. We never use this information for the provision of SEO consulting services so you do not need to worry that entering your information will be used against you or your clients by SEOmoz.

We take appropriate physical, electronic, and other security measures to help safeguard personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, or disclosure.

Some people however have tin foil hats. The ones with the biggest tin foil hats are not the blackhats, but those who work with major corporations who have signed contracts that prevent them using tools that might in any way share data with 3rd parties.

Small update:-

When I wrote this part I was actually thinking about whether someone like Steve Plunkett would use a 3rd party tool like this, and he conveniently tweeted.

http://bit.ly/9VPf9y - TOOLS... yes SEO haz them, but should YOU use them? (with all the client data?)

September 7, 2010 4:27 pm via AddToAnyReplyRetweetFavorite

@steveplunkett

steveplunkett

Steve works in the corporate SEO world – data security is sacrosanct for his INC500 clients

So the 3rd point is be aware of who you are sharing data with about your own sites or that of clients

Ultimately a real LDA Google information retrieval geek (my mate Dave) is fairly positive that the conversation and experimentation is taking place.

That doesn’t mean Google are actually using LDA, or suggest any correlation with the current SERPs.

One thing I am sure off though, if you have paid for some kind of SEO miracle plugin/software/service for bloggers based upon keyword density you really need to read and try to understand Rand’s post, as it highlights how much junk you have been fed by your Tribe.
LDA > LSI > Keyword Density but that doesn’t mean they are used by Google for search engine results.

Update

You know how once you release technology people either copy it very quickly or release their own competing product.. “showing their cards” so to speak?

Well it looks like Matthew has an Advanced LDA tool with a very simple interface that seems to give very similar correlation data to what I discovered with the SEOmoz LDA tool.

Tom Critchlow of Distilled has quite a disturbing post today for affiliates on the SEOmoz blog, encouraging brands to rank for their own coupon codes.

The suggestion is that brands should try to rank for their own voucher codes and take that traffic away from affiliate coupon sites. Unfortunately in some cases that might be biting the hand that feeds you.

Many of the sites that offer various forms of vouchers & coupons are brand evangelists, and the page on their site which offers regular updated coupons to their audience also acts as a conduit to product reviews, in much the same way as product reviews would link to the most recent coupon codes.
If affiliates are smart, they also have access to coupons from competing products and brands.

Whilst you can stamp out the traffic pure coupon sites receive by ranking for your own brand… and that could quite easily make a visible “net gain” to justify SEO jobs, the negative effect is hard to quantify.

Lets take Tom’s example to extremes and rank for as many terms used by affiliates as possible.

[brand] review

[brand] sucks/scam/

[brand] vs

[brand] compared

[brand] cheap

[brand] coupon/discount/bonus/rebate/voucher/promo

These are all bread and butter terms for affiliates, but if you cut off all the terms affiliates can rank for, many affiliates will just write about your competitors instead.

This also happens frequently in reverse when vendors don’t supply affiliates with coupons, affiliates will rank for your “[brand] coupon” and offer an alternative product instead.

By promoting the existence of coupons to your primary user base, that increases the traffic for the search term, which makes it more lucrative for affiliates to rank for the term.
Also a higher percentage of your existing client base will search for coupon codes for every transaction. It is much easier to do this on the internet than brick & mortar stores where the coupons might have ended up with the junk mail, or simply forgotten.

Many online brands have been created or significantly enhanced by strong affiliate partners, and coupons often are provided to ensure affiliates get the sale and to add urgency/increase conversion rate.

There is a danger that some advice that might seem obvious could backfire and be very difficult to repair.

In his article Tom mentioned Argos, who I found ranking much higher than stated with their current “voucher” page, however they were also targeting the term via PPC.
UK search for Argos Voucher Personalization off
The problem with their PPC listing? It doesn’t link to a vouchers page.
Argos are however a store that makes vouchers extremely prominent, displaying them in a section on their home page “This Week’s Highlights”

Of course SEOMoz itself doesn’t rank highly for any of the terms highlighted, maybe that is a “Headsmacking Tip” too (they have an affiliate program)

Update 30/11/2009

I just want to tie this in with some more discussion and found some coverage by Scott Jangro of a challenge for coupon affiliates to prove their value.

I don’t think it is the right question to ask. For me the important factors are:-

• Did coupon affilaites in some way in the past help create an ecosystem where price concious consumers actively look for coupons online in Google because they could find them?
• Should coupons always be available to affiliates?

I am sure Affiliates did help create an ecosystem, so it would be wrong to say they add no value.
Affiliates should never be in a position that someone using their links has to pay more for a product than if they went to a site directly.

I also still feel that vendors should be careful competing with affiliates on what might be “cream” search terms where a coupon site might be a final destination within an affiliate’s value chain, or part of their overall SEO strategy. If part of their revenue for a product line is stripped away, it could affect their willingness to promote in other ways.

Currently Technorati still return an authority rating for your blog, even if they have determined you are gaming the system, but there is no guarantee that that will remain the case indefinitely.

Many blog monetization systems rely on Technorati authority as an indication of the value of placing a link on that blog, and thus there are quite significant rewards for having a high authority, which results in a lower ranking position, “1″ being the top ranking.

Open Source Publishers

One of the best rewards of publishing Open Source software is you can often include a link back to your site somewhere on the pages of the people using your software. These links in turn are used by various search engines to rate the authority of the site being linked to. With Google one indicator is Pagerank, with Technorati it is their authority.

Even the most prominent Open Source Developers are not immune from being banned by Technorati.

Compare Matt’s blog to the “official” top authority blog, and there is a massive divide.

Widgets

Widget publishers are not immune to the Technorati nerf stick. Even if you are a top rated SEO blog such as SEOmoz, and gaining 100s of editorial links on a daily basis, you might be removed from the top100.

Theme & Plugin Publishers

Theme publishers are not immune from being banned by Technorati if they include live links to the blog from the themes they give away for free.

Blogrolls

There are various ways to exchange blogroll links such that they are counted by Technorati, but don’t provide real links that are seen by other search engines.
Whilst joining such blogrolls might not get you banned (unless you hit the top 100), it is more than likely that Technorati will start discounting those links.

Blog Networks get away with some massive interlinking, but the more legitimate networks are making an effort to make those links more relevant.

Paid Links

In this case I am referring to links which appear to Technorati as a blogroll – if you buy lots of obvious “sponsor links”, it is quite possible Technorati is going to ban you.

I can’t say whether that is why John appears to be banned, but it might be one explanation, though the majority of John’s links have certainly come from other kinds of payola.

Unfortunately it doesn’t take much poison to taint a well.

Paid Reviews

This is a tough question and Technorati are faced with a similar problem to Google. Which links are editorial, and which are purely for pagerank and other factors.

In my opinion, quality reviews are most likely to remain in all indexes, but then I am an open supporter of quality paid reviews which give more value than just links.

All You Care About Is Money?

If all you care about is money, then obviously for as long as Technorati continue to report your authority via their API as being significant, even if you are effectively banned, then gaming the Technorati authority system could be looked on as a good idea to boost your earnings from text links and reviews.

The big problem with many of the ways of gaming the system is that they are permanent. Those links are out there, so if you have some success with a theme you publish, and through your own blogging efforts you start to approach the top100 list, there is no way to fix the problem.

There is no rule saying that Technorati have to continue giving a rating of banned sites by API, thus any “gamed” rating in the future might effectively return a “zero” in the future.

Why Should You Care?

If you are going to publish a theme or create a widget, you need to think carefully whether having a Technorati rating is something you wish to maintain.

I am not referring to whether you are listed in the Top100, but whether you would have a rating being returned at all by the API.

It is easy to say that you don’t care about being listed on Technorati, all you care about is how much you can sell your links for, but what happens if Technorati decide to stop reporting banned sites via their API?

There is a chance you might get reincluded, if Technorati develop technology so that they can discount links from the sidebar and footer totally, but it wouldn’t be so simple to still allow legitimate blogroll links.

How To Avoid Being Banned By Technorati

It is well known that Technorati currently don’t follow 301 redirects, so the solution currently is quite simple.

• Decide on a theme name
• Register a domain name for the theme
• Use the domain name for the link within a theme
• Use a 301 redirect from the domain name to your blog

You could actually just use one domain for all your redirects, or use a 3rd party service that issues a 301 redirect though that is placing your eggs in a basket you have little control over.

Alternatively just use nofollow on the links, but then they will not be seen by other search engines, and that would be throwing away good “Google Juice”.

A 301 Redirect would still be recognised by Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.

If in the future Technorati do support 301 redirects, it would most likely be possible to tell them not to follow certain redirects for your themes. The most likely scenario for the future is an interface in Technorati to allow you to tell them that 2 listings are effectively the same.

Note:-Technorati Authority is not the same as Technorati Favorites.

Technorati to my knowledge haven’t banned anyone from encouraging people to add them to their Technorati Favorites.

Technorati Authority on the other hand is the cornerstone of their search results to determine relevance, and thus they are going to defend it.

Retroactive Action

I have no idea how you could take retroactive action to fix your ratings.

This affects me too, a while ago I created a widget for LinkedIn, and it linked to a static page. As the functionality of the widget was eventually blocked by the service it was intended to promote, I changed the graphic used, and most links have now been removed from sidebars.
In hindsight I would have used a domain name and 301 redirect.

Theoretically any authority gained from that widget will be outside the 6 month rolling window that Technorati use within the next 2 months, and my own situation will be cleared up.
This would be much harder to achieve for theme and plugin authors. Maybe easier for those with paid links.

It is actually quite a sterile look on the practice, and doesn’t mention one important concept.

Community

Rand asks

Has anyone ever actively pursued this technique? Any success? I know it’s worked on us – I’ll link back to someone who linked to SEOmoz with a good idea or suggestion or topic; when it’s done right, it doesn’t seem like spam or marketing at all – just good inter-site dialogue.

My answer:-

I think every notable blogger peruses this technique, unless they are running a sterile corporate blog.

As an example supporting the Z-list meme meant I gave a lot of blogs some link love, but at the same time, many of the bloggers I linked to have visited my blog, and maybe a couple subscribed.

Another example was my support of WordPress Tutorials when they were having trademark problems.

When I took Robert Scoble to task on his promotion of Google Reader, I experienced a significant surge in traffic from his post, but very little of it stayed around as subscribers, or even read my first post on the subject.

Insular vs Community

I have written about my community aims for this blog in the past. This blog is an experiment in running a community based blog on internet and niche marketing. Most such blogs are very insular, with the aim to retain customers rather than be part of the blogging community.

In many ways it is an interesting experiment, because the views of an internet marketer in many ways are the opposite of bloggers, who don’t like being sold to.
My opinions are often quite the opposite of many A-list bloggers, as my commentary on subjects like PayPerPost have proven. I haven’t been dragged over the coals by anyone, but such views don’t attract link love.

The same can be true of my Disclosure Policy Plugin. Because it provides a solution to the controversy of disclosure on blogs, hardly anyone is giving the plugin any link love.

Trackback or Comment

Unfortunately in my experience, trackbacks in general bring in less traffic than a well timed comment, unless a blog is setup to emphasise trackbacks and you get in very early.

This blog is setup to encourage trackbacks. Trackbacks gain a followable link as do comments.

Stomper Net 2.0 has just launched, boasting a lot of new faculty members including 2 of my favourite experts, Sherman Hu and Leslie Rohde.

Supreme Joint Venture

I have noticed something significant with the relaunch and whilst the following is speculation, I can’t see a reason that that isn’t at least close to how the joint venture works.

The most important observations are

1. The relaunch was not emailed continuously to previous signups
2. The relaunch was not emailed by previous launch partners and faculty members
3. The launch is being heavily promoted just by the new faculty members

How this JV Works

The experts selected seem to have been chosen for a number of compelling reasons

1. They are acknowledged experts in their field
2. Lots of SEO talent to take some of the workload from Brad and Andy
3. The new faculty members in the main do not have their own existing high ticket items or services

Lets take Sherman for instance

Say he has 1000 members of WordPress Tutorials currently active and makes on average $90 per member per year. That is $90K per year. Not bad income, but I don’t think he has that many members yet.

With Stompernet 2.0 the money pot is much more significant

1000 new members x $900 per month x 12 months = $10,800,000

Now that money is likely to be shared between the new faculty members as an ongoing fee for the training and support they provide, various other support costs and outsourcing, affiliate fees again to the new faculty members, and a fair sized chunk to Brad and Andy.

There are also costs associated with holding 4 seminars per year, but I think that is easily covered. The element of risk is totally removed, and I am sure good deals can be struck with a supporting hotel for such a conference with 2000 guests.

Realistically speaking, each new faculty member can expect to clear $300,000 per year, much more if they were able to sign up a significant amount of new members themselves.
I am sure at least one of the new faculty members will clear $1M from his involvement.

Old Faculty Members

I don’t think they gain anything from the new memberships. Whilst there will be additional members, the work is being shared between more experts. They didn’t get to promote the doors being re-opened, at least not yet, but expect them to have a bite of the cake if the expected number of slots are not filled this cycle.

Comparing income

It is hard to find reliable figures for service companies online, or at least it was until Rand Fishkin revealed the SEOMoz earnings for 2005 and 2006.

Total income $600,000 with 9 full time employees
Rand only cleared $26K for himself in 2006

Rand is building a business and a brand, so those figures are bound to increase for 2007, but it is easy to see that Stomper Net is a very attractive proposition for anyone involved.

Can’t Afford Stomper Net 2.0?

Don’t worry, you are not alone. I can’t actually justify the expense this time round either.

Here are some alternatives

1. Get Michael Campbells ebooks for free, including Revenge of the Mininet
2. Bonus – Leslie Rohde’s Dynamic Linking comes as a free bonus to the above

3. Join WordPress Tutorials – Sherman’s WordPress Training is superb and I haven’t seen any notification that he will be closing shop. He still answers questions on his WordPress support forum daily and there is a good chance that some of the material prepared for Stomper Net will be reworked for his own site.

I would honestly love to be on the faculty for Stomper Net 3.0