Google has cracked down on major online retailer Overstock.com after perceived underhand search engine optimisation (SEO) tactics, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While Google’s policy dictates that it does not comment on individual cases, the problem is rumoured to lie with Overstock offering a discount to students and educational institutions in exchange for embedding keyword links on their sites. According to experts, the .edu domain names of these academic institutions websites have enjoy greater prominence in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), since they are deemed more likely to display ‘authoritative’ content.

In addition, sites fare well in Google’s rankings if a significant number of other sites contain links to them – a manifestation of the crucial principle behind PageRank, Google’s original ‘scoring system’ for websites.

After recent criticism about the falling standard of Google’s search and its slow response in dealing with content farms, is this move as much a statement of intent as a decision to penalise a company that contravened Google’s guidelines?

Also, given the extensive publicity of the case, is the consequent media attention numbing the effects of Google’s penalties? Overstock has been relegated in Google’s SERPs, but the media attention may be driving more traffic than their search results ever did. Then again, it’s probably not the kind of publicity most companies want …

Sedo, the world’s leading global domain names marketplace, recently announced the results of its latest Annual Domain Market Study.

The report – centred on trends in the domain industry and information based on transactions in Sedo’s marketplace – found that Sedo’s global exchange now hosts over 18 million domain names and produced over $100 million in total sales for 2010, the first time the company has achieved that number.

Overall, the trading of domain names has reached all-time high levels, with a 12 per cent growth in sales of web addresses recorded year on year.

Nora Nanayakkara, Business Development Director at Sedo, said: ”The growth in domain name sales has been consistently on the upswing as more businesses recognise their value in growing a company’s online presence. While domain names like Sex.com, which sold for a whopping $13 million last quarter, are highly prized for their branding and marketing potential, in reality many domain names are much more affordable.

Nanayakkara went on to say that a good domain name is an asset every business should invest in: ”All shapes and sizes of businesses have the opportunity to extend their brand online if they invest in an armoury of decent web addresses. It helps companies to achieve important goals in growing a business online: to capture the right traffic, secure better search rankings and build a more prominent digital brand.”

Keywords are the lifeblood of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Although search engines no longer place as much importance on them for rankings as they used to, they are still crucial to setting up your SEO campaign for two reasons.

Firstly, it can help focus your mind when generating content and choosing your website’s domain name to have a full list of words which are important to your business, and sales aims. Second, and most importantly, the person searching for you will be using keywords and they will want to find a site that matches their enquiry.

As well as standard terms connected to your business and industry, you need to widen the keyword net to include all possible angles from which someone may approach your company. These include:

Your people: If any of your staff have a strong reputation in the industry, then they will probably attract attention based on this alone. By connecting that reputation openly to your company through keywords, you can achieve the maximum number of hits via personal contacts and recommendations.

Your place: There have always been services for which people wish to stay local, and the advent of green issues has popularised ‘buying local’ even further. Make the most of this by including geographical keywords in your list.

Your business: What questions would you expect someone to ask about your business? These should all be included in your keyword list, whether who, what, where, why, when and how.

If you are looking to instigate an SEO campaign for your business, contact NSDesign for a free no-obligation quote.

When choosing a domain name, you need to think carefully about its suffix:

.com – The most popular top-level domain, in use since the Internet began in 1985. Companies anywhere in the world can own a .com domain and there is some evidence that it is prioritised by google.com in rankings. Consequently .com is an excellent choice if you wish to target an international audience.

.co.uk – A second-level domain name, specific to the UK. Many countries now have their own unique second-level domain suffix. It is seen as analogous to .com in many countries, although does geographically bound your site. As a result, while you may rank higher in national search engines, like google.co.uk, it can not compete internationally, where .com will always trump. For this reason, .co.uk is an excellent choice for targeting the domestic market. It also tends to be cheaper than a .com address.

Other domain names you may like to consider are:

.biz –A top-level domain intended to denote a business site. It is not geographically bounded, but does not have the popularity of a .com address. To own a .biz domain, you must prove its use for business and/ or commercial purposes.

.ac.uk – A second-level domain which is industry specific. This can only be used by academic institutions and is highly popular in this field, where it is seen as a mark of quality. Consequently many researchers focus on .ac.uk sites.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that there is nothing to stop a website owning a .com and .co.uk or industry specific version of the same address, for maximum impact.

When you’re starting up a website, the first hurdle you’ll have to clear is choosing a domain name. It’s an important decision and one that will have long-term effects on how you market your business and the amount of traffic you attract to your site. So what should you consider when making the choice?

The most important thing is to be memorable, so people can find without difficulty. Domain names can be up to 63 characters long, which gives you flexibility to create a name which spells out exactly what you do, rather than relying on difficult abbreviations. For example www.CheapBooksForSchools.com is more likely to be remembered than www.CBFS.com; the latter could relate to anything.

Spelling mistakes when entering a URL into a browser are common and can often result in your customer ending up on a competitor’s site. For this reason, hyphens and numbers should be avoided. They are difficult to ‘spell’ out when verbally passing on the email address and very easy to misplace. Addresses which are simply variations of an existing site should also be avoided as they can easily drive traffic away from your site and onto the ‘original’.

In an ideal world, your domain name should reflect your brand. If you are setting up a business, it’s almost worth putting the cart before the horse and choosing your domain name before christening your company. By linking your domain name and brand you create a reciprocal relationship that makes your domain name easier to remember and increases brand recognition.

Keeping these simple points in mind when choosing your domain name will give your website the best chances of long-term success, attracting search engine and customer attention; so choose wisely!

One of the questions we’re often asked by clients is where they should host their blog. Free blogging platforms such as WordPress and Blogger make it possible to set-up a blog within a few minutes. The content, by default, is hosted by the software provider and accessed via their domain name, e.g. www.wordpress.com/blogforjoebloggs.

However, we always advise our clients to host their blogs on their own specific domains. This could be a stand-alone blog  such as www.blogforjoebloggs.com, or a new section on an existing website such as www.joebloggswebsite.com/blog.

Even though there are costs associated with buying specific domain names and paying for hosting space, the benefits make it a very worthwhile investment. The free blog sites are great up until a point, in that they enable you to start generating some traffic, but did you know that you don’t actually own the blog? While you own the content, one step out of line and your account could be closed, taking all of your hard work with it.

As your blog and your company expand and become more popular, you will find the flexibility of your own domain name incredibly important. By having your own domain name for your blog, or bolting it on to your main website, you will gain more credibility with your readers as well as enjoying complete control over your content and adding value to your business.

I was speaking to a customer earlier who claimed that seconds after searching for an available domain name at Network Solutions, said domain name was instantly showing up as “registered” on other whois lookups.  Back at Network Solutions domain checker – the domain continued to show as available.

This led him to believe that Network Solutions was in fact instantly registering every domain name that people check.  SURELY NOT I thought…  so I did a quick experiment…  I checked on their site for the availability of a random domain – nsdesign20.com – and as expected, this showed as available for registration.  I then checked via Enom (the registry we use for all our .com registrations) and sure enough – nsdesign20.com was registered, and unavailable.

A little more digging shows this practice, commonly known as Domain Name Front Running (or domain tasting) is indeed confirmed by the folks at Network Solutions who claim they are actually trying to ”protect customers” and is not simply a case of them using phishing techniques to hijack or steal domain names, FORCING customers to register with them and no-one else (I’ll let you decide which attitude is correct).  More info can be read on Wikipedia (updated just yesterday).

The good news, for those people who have been conned (as some would suggest) is that they only keep the domain registered for a 4 day period, so that’s good of them, and no I haven’t included an actual link to Network Solutions in this blog post as I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy (I’m not angry – honest). 

Ps – don’t anyone dare register nsdesign20.com when it becomes available in 4 days – It’s critical to our future plans.