theEweekly Wrap: Rankings, rumours and reprimands

Penney returns

USA superstore JC Penney has returned to the search engine results pages after being punished for 90 days by Google. Back in February 2011, news broke of JC Penney's black hat SEO tactics – such as link buying – used to rank highly for popular generics. Speaking to Search Engine Land, Google's Matt Cutts said: "We saw a valid reconsideration request [...] You don’t want to be vindictive or punitive, so after three months the penalty was lifted." The penalty appears to have been imposed manually rather than algorithmically: as SEL explains, the site's old URLs have simply reappeared in rankings, rather than the new ones the company is in the process of introducing. Meanwhile, SEOptimise speculated that the amount of media coverage garnered by the company could work out for the best. Although all the old paid links were removed, the number of backlinks overall has increased, so when the site is recrawled it may enjoy better rankings than before the story broke.

Facebook the music

Rumours have been flying this week regarding a potential deal between Spotify and Facebook. The Forbes blog quoted "sources close to the deal", and speculated that Facebook users would soon be able to stream Spotify's music library through the social media site. The rumours are given weight by the fact that Facebook's first president Sean Parker is a Spotify investor. In addition, March saw the launch of Facebook movie rentals after a deal with Warner Bros. However, a spokesperson denied that anything was happening. Meanwhile, a potential rival is attempting to re-launch itself. Last.fm has hired new tech and development staff, announced a website redesign, and improved its mobile apps. Although the number of users decreased only slightly in the face of Spotify's success, TheNextWeb.com suggested that this is an attempt to "offer quality services to its users and thus justify charging for using the service."

Tweeters in trouble

The head of Twitter in Europe has revealed that members who use the site to break local laws could be in trouble. Speaking at the e-G8 conference in Paris, Tony Wang confirmed that Twitter's policy is to comply with legal requests for the personal details of users; meaning account holders who mentioned 'the footballer' before he was named in parliament could be in trouble – around 75,000 people. At the centre of the debacle is @InjunctionSuper, the Twitter account that first named the celebrities in question. However, in his speech Wang promised that users would be notified of any legal requests for their details. Moreover, the possibility of tracking down a Twitter user from their registration details is rather slim – accounts can be created using simply an email address and password.

How religions use Twitter and Facebook

Religions turning to social media

Almost all religions hold as fundamental the need to spread the word of their beliefs. Many also put an emphasis on the importance of converting others to their way of thinking. You're likely to have seen at some point in your life a person who holds a particular belief expressing what they believe. Be it in a church, a mosque, on a bill board, or whilst walking down Market Street, we've all been witness to religious messages and preaching.

In a sense, this could be thought of as a form of marketing by religions. So how have they harnessed a new broadcasting platform; that of social media? With social media having such a large user-base it makes perfect sense that religions should promote their beliefs online. Christians believe that Jesus said: "Go into the entire world and preach the Good News to everyone". Twitter actually enables this. Social media proves an exciting prospect for all religious voices, giving the ability to speak to a large audience of both believers and non-believers alike, in an instant. It could also be advantageous to 'armchair believers' – e.g. Christians who hold some kind of belief but would be too nervous or busy to attend a church service.

There have been many examples of religions using social media tools to increase awareness of their beliefs and to enthuse current believers. Social media platforms have also proved popular with preachers as it is a cost-free opportunity to explain their convictions.

Twitter

Religions have used Twitter to broadcast prayers and uplifting messages with many churches and religious leaders having accounts. #DailyPrayers is also a regular trend - people can use the hashtag to post their prayers and follow it to see prayers posted by believers. The Rev Richard Jones of Burscough has even used the tool during services, encouraging people to tweet their thoughts in the middle of his sermons.

Facebook

Facebook is very prominent among believers, with many churches having pages with large amounts of 'likes' and the ability for members to 'check in' online. Allfacebook.com, the 'unofficial Facebook resource', regularly looks at Facebook statistics.In the weeks before Easter 2011 it found that The Bible's Facebook page was seen to have the highest level of engagement, based on their metrics, even surpassing Justin Bieber and Manchester United.

YouTube

Many churches, particularly evangelical churches in the US, have YouTube channels for broadcasting regular services. There is also a Muslim YouTube Channel, Hinduism Today Channel and various channels for synagogues. Although there are examples of social media platforms being used negatively to submit extremist messages, there are many examples of them being used well.

There are a great many instances of religions and cultures using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook simply to explain their ways of thinking and educate people about their beliefs. This ability for wider communities to explore religions online enables them to learn more, promoting understanding and acceptance and hopefully leading to less hostility towards and between religious communities.

Building relationships - Bruntwood chooses theEword

It's hard to live or work in the north west without having some awareness of Bruntwood. The family-owned commercial property company manages some of the region's most iconic buildings, including City Tower, Portland Tower, 111 Piccadilly, Elliot House, Oriel Chambers and Orleans House – and its distinctive red badge appears on countless more. Besides Greater Manchester and Liverpool, it also has a major presence in Leeds and Birmingham.

That's why we're delighted to announce that Bruntwood has selected us to handle their pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) accounts following a competitive pitch. Having been appointed as Bruntwood's retained agency, we will be responsible for ensuring the brand is as visible online as it is on the streets of Britain's cities.

Building for success with Bruntwood

Emma Nevison, marketing manager at Bruntwood, has explained why she feels theEword fit the bill:

"From the outset, the team at theEword impressed us with their knowledge and genuine enthusiasm for digital marketing. This passion, topped with their track record of delivering measurable campaigns, was a key reason behind our decision to appoint them."

Exciting win for theEword

Speaking on behalf of theEword, meanwhile, managing director Al Mackin has offered his thoughts on the partnership:

"Bruntwood is a company that needs no introduction and we are thrilled that they have chosen theEword to run their SEO and PPC campaigns. This is an exciting win for us and I have complete faith that our marketing team will deliver great results for Bruntwood over the coming months."

Bruntwood is not the only high-profile client to join our books recently. To name just two examples, we were chosen to manage the SEO campaign of news and lifestyle website Manchester Confidential and build a mobile site for London venture capital firm Atomico.

Richard Frost

theEweekly Wrap: Rebranding, reviewing and record labels

Copyrights and wrongs

The Hargreaves review was published on Wednesday, containing recommendations for an overhaul of UK copyright laws. Suggestions include making it legal to 'rip' CDs and DVDs to other formats for personal use, as well as relaxing the laws surrounding parodies and 'orphaned' works of unknown authorship. Professor Ian Hargreaves, of Cardiff University, said his suggestions were intended to "enhance the economic potential of the UK's creative industries." The review also suggests the creation of a Digital Copyright Exchange, to enable simple, open buying and selling of copyright licenses by organisations or individuals. The National Union of Journalists has voiced "serious concerns" over this idea, as it may take control away from creators of content - namely journalists and photographers. However, the Union did welcome the idea of allowing IP cases into the small claims court, as it would "improve the position" of freelancers.

IDM goes digital

One of the industry's most respected bodies has rebranded itself to put a new focus on digital marketing. The Institute of Direct Marketing is now the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing, but will keep the acronym IDM. This is part of a whole new brand identity including a new website and new training facilities in South London. The IDM was founded in 1987 has been delivering certificates and diplomas in digital marketing since 2005. Derek Holder, managing director of the IDM, said: "Given the impact of digital technologies on marketing and the fact that the IDM business model itself has changed dramatically over the last five years, it’s imperative that the Institute evolves to reflect the new values and priorities of the marketing profession it serves." The IDM can now claim to be the only government-approved institute for digital marketing.

Cloud allowed

Speculation is reaching fever pitch following reports from CNET.com that Apple has signed a licensing deal with EMI. Past rumours of a deal with Warner, as well as similar deals with Sony and Universal reportedly being on the horizon, has led everybody to one conclusion: the Cloud is coming. These record labels are known as the 'big four', and having them on-side in time for the Worldwide Developers Conference on 6 June 2011 could point to a big announcement from Apple. Of course, an Amazon cloud service and Google Music (beta) both already exist, but are unlicensed. This means they are somewhat restricted compared to Apple's potentially industry-approved cloud. For example, Mashable speculated Apple "could merely scan users’ iTunes library and offer the same songs to them almost instantly from the cloud", whereas the existing competitors require users to spend hours or even days uploading their music.

SEO and the Royal Wedding

We look at who ranked where for the term 'Royal Wedding'

All eyes were focused on the Royal Wedding last month, but how did websites in the UK use the big occasion to their advantage? Exclusive research from theEword's MD Al Mackin reveals exactly which sites' search engine optimisation strategies enjoyed a happy marriage with the big day, and which were left standing at the altar.

(All data taken on 2nd May 2011)

Site	Google UK Ranking for Term 'Royal Wedding'	Total Pages on Site1	Royal Wedding Pages on Site2	Total Inbound Links3
officialroyalwedding2011.org	1	523	149	36,045
BBC	2	323,000	264	24,659,781
Telegraph	3	2,650,000	20,100	7,199,389
theroyalweddingwilliamkate.com	4	1,840	158	11,755
Wikipedia	5	3,660	5	4,212,572
Direct.gov.uk	7	8,960,000	220	3,561,458
royalwedding.yahoo.com	8	5,910	497	12,136
Guardian	9	4,320,000	6,900	17,085,322
Daily Mail	10	757,000	5,330	6,153,839
royalwedding.aol.com	11	1,200	448	1,462
Royal.gov.uk	12	65	0	120,345
Londonist.com	13	2,470	119	207,627
ITV	14	65,000	234	376,111
The Sun	50+	784,000	364	1,436,930
Times	50+	1,740	1	192,312
Mirror	50+	65,300	1,660	878,020

Notes:

¹Total pages on the listed domain (source: Google)

²Total number of pages that have the primary keyword in the URL (Source: Google)

³Total number of inbound links (Source: Yahoo)

Analysis

The official Royal Wedding website comes out on top, perhaps unsurprisingly. It has achieved this position in no small part through using the primary keyword 'Royal Wedding' in the site URL. This technique has also been used by unofficial sites theroyalweddingwilliamkate.com and royalwedding.yahoo.com, which gained ranking positions 4 and 8 respectively. What's interesting to note is how both have achieved high positions despite having a relatively low number of inbound links. Google clearly still sees the inclusion of the keyword in the URL as a big factor when presenting search results.

What's more, the chart above shows that the official Royal Wedding site ranked first despite coming up short against larger rivals in almost every category. We can safely assume that the sheer amount of content relating to the wedding saw Google look very favourably upon it.

One big surprise in the data is the fairly poor showing among newspaper websites. The Telegraph, the Guardian and the Daily Mail take positions 3, 9 and 10. The Guardian particularly could have made gains here when its inbound links (second only to the BBC among the top ten sites) and total pages are taken into account. Considering the success of the sites with the primary keyword contained in the URL, it's fair to conclude the Guardian did not place quite as much emphasis on placing the primary keyword in the URLs of its news coverage.

A good level of quality among its inbound links along with a large volume of related pages saw the Telegraph rank highly, a factor that also contributed to the success of Direct.gov.uk. This is primarily the same reason why the BBC – with a whopping 24 million links – ranks second.

The losers are the Sun, the Times and the Mirror. The Sun, particularly, had up to 1 million more inbound links than the websites in places 11 to 14, so should be disappointed with its poor showing here.

So what can be taken from these figures? Mainly that being an 'authority' site with inbound links garners good search results. Of course, as is the case with Londonist.com (one of the weakest sites on the list), flukes do still occur, but the importance of link-building when developing a strong SEO presence cannot be denied. However, despite claims to the contrary, Google clearly still places a significant premium on URLs containing relevant keywords. Even after the recent Google Panda update, it would appear the fundamentals of SEO best practice remain largely the same.

theEweekly Wrap: Gagging, targeting and tracking

Super-injunctions crack

The row over super-injunctions escalated this week as a Twitter account appeared to reveal the big names involved. @InjunctionSuper was set up on 8 May 2011, and sent just six tweets. Despite certain celebrities mentioned in the tweets denying any truth in them, the account amassed over 106,000 followers in four days. On Monday, there was a 14 per cent rise in visits to Twitter from the UK. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales also joined the debate on Thursday. Pages for the celebrities in question had to be locked to prevent users from sharing the gossip. However, Wales said the only reason for this is that the information does not come from a 'reliable source' – if the names were to be published in a newspaper from outside the UK, they could be added to Wikipedia.

iP-Ads

Google has been toppled from its position as world's top brand - by Apple. After four years at the top of the annual Millward Brown BrandZ survey, Google was knocked into second place with a worth of $111.5 billion (£68.5bn), compared to Apple's $153.3bn (£94.2bn), which is an 84 per cent rise on 2010. The change in fortunes is partly due to Apple's impressive sales of the iPad, and the launch of the iPad 2 in March. This week, Google itself recognised the expanding tablet market with a new AdWords feature. Users can now target their PPC ads to tablet devices, separately to smartphones and computers, and can refine their targeted device by OS. Only standard text and image ads will work at the moment, and Google advised that users ensure landing pages work on tablet devices.

Digital police

London's Metropolitan police have invested in software called Geotime, which is currently used by the US military. According to the Guardian, the programme can "collate information gathered from social networking sites, satellite navigation equipment, mobile phones, financial transactions and IP network logs", to map an individual's movements through space and time. A spokesman said, "We have used dummy data to look at how the software works and have explored how we could use it to examine police vehicle movements, crime patterns and telephone investigations." Meanwhile, a pair of surveys have revealed that social check-in services are not yet truly taking off, due to security concerns. A report by youth marketing agency Dubit revealed that 48 per cent of UK teens have never heard of Facebook Places, Foursquare, SCVNGR or Gowalla. Of those who had heard of the geotagging apps, 45 per cent felt they were 'unsafe'. Another study commissioned by digital agency Beyond revealed just 17 per cent of the mobile population is using these programmes, with 48 per cent of those who don't citing privacy concerns.

theEweekly Wrap: AdWords, Renren, and the e-book boom

Policing AdWords

Google has introduced more stringent requirements for AdWords users, taking effect on 17 May 2011. Revealed in an official AdWords blog, the measures have been put in place to guarantee "a safe, fair, and trusted marketplace for both you and the users who click on your ads". If PPC ads link to a site that requests any personal or financial information, or involves payment – in short, all e-commerce sites – must abide by three new rules. Sites must feature a clear and prominently-placed disclosure of intent, and communication opt-out. Furthermore, sites must have an SSL connection (https://) in place for private information or transactions. Those not complying could have their ads, or even accounts, suspended; in effect allowing Google to police all sites that use AdWords.

Renren floated

With just 5 million users a month, Renren doesn't seem like a very popular social network; especially when its country of origin has a population of over a billion. However, the Chinese social network was floated on the New York Stock Exchange this week, raising an unexpectedly high total of $743.3 million (£453 million). The company is six years old and made a loss of £39 million last year. Also this week, the Chinese government created a new ministry – the State Internet Information Office – to regulate the public's access to the internet. The BBC reported that this was following in-fighting between smaller organisations charged with maintaining the 'great firewall of China', and dissent being spread online in the so-called Jasmine Revolution.

Kindle power

According to the Publisher Association, sales of e-books in the UK have quadrupled in the last year. Sales of consumer titles including novels increased from £4 million to £16 million, while academic and professional e-books made £180 million. In the US, Amazon announced they had sold more Kindle books than print books in February 2011. Meanwhile, rumours abound that Amazon will follow up the hugely successful Kindle with their own tablet device to rival the iPad. DigiTimes reported that Quanta Computer (manufacturers of the Blackberry Playbook) has received an order of 80,000 units in the second half of 2011. Mashable called the rumours "plausible", due to Amazon's existing ties with Android.