SEO/SEM News

This new SEO Contest recently started for the keywords: GlobalWarming Awareness2007. This just started yesterday, January 15, 2007 when the keywords were released at 1pm EST. I was on trying to get the best domains but domain registrations were going on like crazy. In the first 10 minutes, all major domains were taken already.

Currently on the 2nd day of the contest, and surprisingly, it has 12,000+ results on Google already.

Something I have not seen compared to Isulong SEOph, Ituloy AngSulong and Vorgermilten. But come to think of it, this contest, the first prize is a car. And to get this promoted, the organizers actually have a PPC campaign budget to promote the contest whose banner ads were all over Digital Point’s Forum. So I guess we are going to expect the best to be in the contest and that just makes the contest even a lot harder.

For Vorgermilten, assuming the contest is for real, and this SEO contest ends on December 31, 2006, I should be receiving $600 and an iPod if the rankings do not change on Google and Yahoo which seem to appear stable.

But taking a look at Ituloy AngSulong, for the past week, this is what I have been seeing:

• Google: Results are stable. So stable, I do not see any changes happening. Maybe it is also due to the fact that everyone is busy with their holiday celebrations and no one is working on their websites. I barely see any changes in positions.
• Yahoo: The number 1 position dances all the time and makes big jumps too. My site jumps from 1 to 14, to 1 to 22 and back to 1 and some place else. I do not know why, but I think the results that slowly inch their way up have better chances of staying there, than those that jump up and down large steps.
• MSN: Double entries coming out. I can’t remember who was the first one that told me, but I think it is Alfredo Palconit was the first that sent me an IM about it. Then when I found out it was happening with my site too, I showed my officemate who runs free online flash games and was also showing double entries on MSN. Like they appear both on page 1 and page 2 with the exact same URL.

Google, based on statistics, is probably the most popular search engine in the world today. But Russia is a whole different territory where language and culture is different and Google just can’t seem to penetrate.

What websites do Russian’s visit?

Most probably their own websites if you will ask me. I have no valid statistical study but I will base my findings from 3 websites looking at their ClustrMaps.

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Although these websites above are not really targeted for the Russian audience, it was not specifically targeted for the Chinese audience either. For Indian, Australian and for people in countries in Europe, but you can see still there is quite a large amount of traffic coming from those areas even if these sites are not specifically geo-targetted. But if you check the traffic from Russia, only some occasional one or two dots from Russia will come out.

But for sure the Internet is alive in Russia, with all these Russian SEO friends we have on Digital Point’s forum and also these SEO applications made by Russian programmers, for sure the Internet is alive in Russia. But what websites do they visit? Most probably they visit Russian websites as well.

Language and cultural preferences probably does not make Google the top search engine in Russia

The top visited websites in Russia as reported by Eric Pfanner on the New York Times says the top 3 most visited sites in Russia are Yandex, Mail.ru and Rambler. And based on online advertising revenue, Yandex controls 50% of the market and Rambler is second with 41%. The remaining 9% is for other online ad companies that include Google. Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh also says in this report:

“With real estate, it’s location, location, location,” he said. “On the Internet, it’s technology, technology, technology. We have this homegrown technology that in many cases is better than theirs.”

Ironically, one of the founders of Google, Sergey Brin is a Russian and was born in Moscow in 1973. Unfortunately, Google is having a hard time dominating his mother land.