Back in April, Ben posted about the Google Rankings/Algorithm changes known as the “Dewey Update”. Those changes effected Amplify Interactive’s rankings for a while as well as some of our clients. Now that things have settled down with Google, it appears that Yahoo! will have its own rankings shuffle-up. Here is a message from their search blog:

We’ll be rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days, but expect the update will be completed soon. As you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.

If you see any changes in your Yahoo! rankings “over the next few days”, make a comment and let us know. Feel free to speculate – what do you think has changed & why? We’ll definitely be observing these changes as we make reports for our clients next week.

The big question of course is whether these changes will be given a prominent name like Google’s “Dewey”, and whether you might need to know this name when studying for the Yahoo! Ambassador Test.

Last evening, Kristin and I attended the first technology event held by the Portland branch of PRSA (Public Relations Society of America). The title was “Understanding Real Media“, which had two sessions:

• Leveraging Video as a Social Media Choice
• Reputation Management Through Measurement and Monitoring

Being PR professionals, the presenters made very compelling cases on why traditional media and PR outlets are blending into the “new media” and outlets of the web. They all agreed that the new media has totally “disrupted” the PR world. The first point here was that new media producers, such as online video producers, can and do have reach in this new world.

One example of this was Jack Hardy of Niche PR showing how he not only leveraged video for PR in the social media world, he had received the same press credentials as the New York Times at the SES event because of his influential Video Podcast, The Public Eye.

This leads to the second point; with the growth of this “new media” and outlets, a company’s reputation and brand can be strengthened or hurt on the web if the company or it’s marketing professionals have apathy towards the medium(s). One great quote about this by Ryerson Schwark of Mentor Graphics (paraphrase) was that building an online reputation is a marathon.

Therefore, if companies aren’t actively building their reputations online, the marathon is taking place without them. As they sit on the sidelines waiting to participate, they fall further behind in shaping their brand while others (3rd parties and competitors) have already started doing so.

The best part for Amplify-Interactive and the SEO/SEM industry as a whole is that long-time PR and marketing professionals are now understanding the power that the online world and new media/social media world has in today’s market. Whether those professionals look at creating blogs, going into Social Media platforms such as Facebook, use podcasts, or actively monitor and build their reputations online–they will need SEO/SEM professionals involved.

So, nice to meet you guys. Welcome to the party…did you bring beer?

Hello all,

This is my first post on Amplify’s blog, and it might be the longest one they have ever had. I blog at a few places–mostly about art and entertainment; therefore, it is nice to write more in-depth about a field I work in.

I attended SEMpdx’s SEM Six-Pack last night at Hotel Deluxe. I took some pictures and thought it an opportunity to continue a photo series I have been doing. In this manner, I can recap and hit some points of what a few speakers said as well as show a little practice-what-you-preach action here.

First, the food is good–look at it! Read the rest of this entry »