The Search Ninja

The other day I received (via email) the latest exciting information for the upcoming SMX (Search Marketing Expo). I’ve pasted a little screenshot of this gem below.

Notice anything “funny”? Hint: I’m not talking about “ha ha” funny.

I thought; “Could this be the latest and greatest example of fancy search marketing lingo?”

Convertion

mmmmm…. Notice how it just rolls off the tongue? Convertion. Imagine the possibilities:

“As you can see Mr. Smith, your Convertion rate is up 300%”

“Cost per conversion? You’re living in the stone-age. Let’s talk about Cost per Convertion.”

“Sorry baby, we just don’t Convertion anymore.”

However after clicking on the word (the velvety, scrumtrulescent, singularity of linguistic power that it is) ; and following the hyperlink it contained, I was sorely disappointed to find that it was just typo (so much promise, what a shame).

My sorrow however quickly faded as a realized that I was staring at none other than “The Complete Agenda Information for SMX Advanced”!

How Exciting! Yeah! Another opportunity for would-be SEO’s and other interested parties to watch the “leaders” and “top thinkers” of the Search Marketing world perform a dazzling three-ring spectacle sure to awe and delight even the most rigid spectator. (In the tradition of it’s predecessors, siblings and familiars) This event is certain to include :

IR Secrets (Information Regurgitation): Exciting hands-on workshops in which today’s top SEO’s reveal closely guarded SEO “secrets” like: Put keywords in Title tags (they must be crazy to share this stuff!).

followed promptly by:

Exclusive Networking: Watch with awe and wonder as SEO’s tell each other how clever they are, then pat each others heads and otherwise jerk each other off.

wrapping the event up with a nice game of:

Get Them Digits: This wondrous spectacle is then concluded with a mass exchange of business cards.

“Why?” You may ask, “would a professional SEO, collect so many useless contacts…”

Well In the weeks following the conference, you may find yourself in need of a good SEO circle-jerk.

Worse still; the next conference is 5 agonizing days away! What to do?

Fortunately, you got-them-digits at SMX and your competitor’s contact information is close at hand! Your fellow SEO is sure to oblige. Give a call! Hell, how about a conference call?!?!
The description above, effectively summarizes and distills ALL of the SEO, SEM, SMO, Expos, Conferences, Workshops, etc. etc. ad nauseum, for years to come. Furthermore, I have done this all for you free of charge! The Search Ninja will accept your generous tokens of gratitude in the form of exceptional backlinks, research grants and of course instruments of the silent assassin.

A primary obstacle faced by search engines is poorly formed searches. Poorly formed queries fall under the auspices of the
Three I’s; which describe (problematic) features of a query that will hinder any search engine. They are:

Imprecision
Incompleteness
Inaccuracy

Imprecise queries are inexact or ill-defined searches in that they do not effectively describe the specificity of an informational need.

For example let’s say that I had to find an annotated diagram of the supramarginal scutes of the Chelydra serpentina osceola; and I approached this by searching Google Images for “Turtle Shells”. The search results returned would be imprecise (in regards to my informational need). Therefore imprecise queries will return results that are technically correct, however their lack of granularity makes them useless.

Incomplete queries are lacking key terms that describe the informational need. This is easy to confuse with Imprecision, however it is very much its own unique devil.
Returning to our turtle example: If I needed to find a good synopsis about turtle shells; their structure, general appearance, sizes common to major species, etc. and I approached this by going to Wikipedia, ha ha… just kidding I would never go to Wikipedia if I needed reliable information. So I go to Google or possibly Google Scholar and type in “Shells”. Here the topical-realm of shells is so vast and diverse that it does nothing to represent an informational need for turtle shells.

Inaccurate queries lack contextual elements of word sense that are essential to proper classification and association with relevant documents. Polysemes and homonyms are a significant obstacle in information retrieval and word sense disambiguation (WSD) represents a large piece of the IR/WebIR puzzle.

Help the search engines (and yourself) out a little! If you want to do a little fly-fishing and need to find a listing of prime spots to cast your line; DON’T search for “Local Banks” (bank could be a financial institution, a stockpile; such as a blood bank or yes even a shoreline as in river bank).

Yesterday, I was scanning my spam folder to see if anything useful was unfairly filed as such. This was an exceedingly wise decision (aren’t they all though?) as my invitation to test drive PageOnce (Beta) was in there.

After completing a simple registration process and adding some personal data I was up and running. My start page (pictured below), featured information from multiple Internet based accounts allowing me to conveniently track everything from one interface.

I have only added a handful of accounts at this point; Gmail, Yahoo, Banking, POP3, but it is already apparent just how useful the common interface is going to be. One major benefit is that I don’t have to lookup my login information to check my various accounts. Or worse, rely on my browser to remember for me. It’s all stored in one simple, secure common interface.

PageOnce allows you to add just about any type of Internet based account; financial, travel, shopping, social and of course email.

The core benefit of using PageOnce is obviously saving time by reducing browsing and login activity. Accordingly the service is probably best suited for frequent business travellers and online business professionals.