Starting in Sitecore 6.4, they introduced a new Search namespace – Sitecore.Search, this uses the Sitecore -> Search -> Configuration -> Indexes section in Web.Config.

From what I know, Sitecore recommends using the new namespace and the old namespace is going to be deprecated starting Sitecore 6.5. The following is a blurb from Sitecore 6.5 Release notes from SDN:
“The Sitecore.Data.Indexing namespace has been deprecated and will be removed in a future version of the CMS in favor of the more powerful and flexible Sitecore.Search classes and corresponding index definitions. “

Since there is only one document on this new namespace, it’s difficult to get more information when you find yourself in a bind. I had to google search to find bits and pieces and so I am writing this post.

Here is the link to the PDF on this site. Click Here (NO SDN access needed)

The basic configuration is given below:

      <configuration type="Sitecore.Search.SearchConfiguration, Sitecore.Kernel" singleInstance="true">
        <indexes hint="list:AddIndex">
          ... ... ...
          <index id="IndexNAME" type="Sitecore.Search.Index, Sitecore.Kernel">
            <param desc="name">$(id)</param>
            <param desc="folder">im_index</param>
            <Analyzer ref="search/analyzer"/>
            <locations hint="list:AddCrawler">
              <master type="Sitecore.Search.Crawlers.DatabaseCrawler, Sitecore.Kernel">
                <Database>master</Database>
                <Tags>master content</Tags>
                <Root>/sitecore/content</Root>
                <IndexAllFields>true</IndexAllFields>
                <include hint="list:IncludeTemplate">
                  <template comment="Template1">{8917CADF-2148-4328-B595-217C5A9CCA7D}</template>
                  <template comment="Template2">{2A18027D-CA51-4E5D-A7C1-51096E09C16C}</template>
                </include>
                <include hint="list:ExcludeTemplate">
                  <template>{8C18027D-CA51-4E5D-A7C1-510965555C}</template>
                </include>
                <!--<include hint="list:IncludeField">
                  <fieldId>{GUID}</fieldId>
                </include>-->
              </master>
            </locations>
          </index>
        </indexes>
      </configuration>

Here is a piece of sample code to query the index:

    Sitecore.Search.Index searchIndex = Sitecore.Search.SearchManager.GetIndex("Search Index Name"); //replace string with the name of the search index
    using (IndexSearchContext context = searchIndex.CreateSearchContext())
    {
        SearchHits hits = context.Search("search string");  //replace string with the actual search string
        SomeRepeater.DataSource = hits.FetchResults(0, 25); //first param is the start item, second is the count
        SomeRepeater.DataBind();
        ResultsCount = hits.FetchResults(0, hits.Length).Count();
    }

Here are some useful links:

Search Index Troubleshooting by Alex Shyba

Index Viewer in Sitecore Shared Source

I hope this is useful. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Well, I’m completely sold on a new idea that has solved this problem for me. It’s made my life much simpler, and it generally works as advertised.

It’s called Dropbox, and if you work on several different computers, it will change the way you work – for the better.

Go to www.getdropbox.com, download the program onto any windows, Linux or Macintosh computer. The program creates a folder on your computer – anywhere you designate. Download the program on each of the computers you use, and sign in with the same email address.

Whenever you are working on any file, you simply save it to your Dropbox folder, and it is available nearly immediately on any of the computers where you have Dropbox installed.

Dropbox accepts nearly any kind of file, making it easily accessible. Whenever you update a file and save it to your Dropbox, the updated version is saved to all computers. You can also access your Dropbox folder from any other computer by going to www.getdropbox.com and logging in with your email address.

While there are a few glitches from time to time (it took me a couple of tries to get one of my computers synched), the system is overall great. It provides online backup storage, seamless document access, and stress saving file synching.

You can make files public if you wish, providing a link to a public folder in your account. The recipients do not need to have a dropbox account to access the files. You can share photos with family or work on a group project without having a single flash drive involved.

There is a free level of service, or you can upgrade to paid status if you need more storage space.

For anyone who regularly uses more than one computer, Dropbox is a service you’ll want to check out.

If recent and continuing developments with the Apple App Store for iPhone and the iPod TYouch are any indication, then Apple is taking on the protectionist policies more commonly associated with those big, clunky, running-scared companies that Apple has traditionally loved to hate (Think Microsoft  and IBM).

The recent desertion of Joe Hewitt from the Facebook App for iPhone is a great example of how those who value open, creative and unrestricted access are being increasingly put off by Apple’s corporate policies.

Hewitt is not just “one of the developers” on the Facebook for iPhone app, he is the application. And he bolted from the project – not because he doesn’t like what he was doing, but entirely because of Apple’s review policies. (See http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/11/joe-hewitt-developer-of-facebooks-massively-popular-iphone-app-quits-the-project/ for more).

The repressive and protectionist policies of Apple (and let’s don’t forget – AT&T behind the scenes) is disturbing not only because it is so contrary to the supposed ethos of Apple and all that it stands for, but also because Apple is the standard for smart phones and application development for smartphones.

If Apple is able to continue their policies that value profit over innovation, then other platforms will feel free to adopt similar models – the standard has been set. It only takes a look at how quickly airlines jumped on the bandwagon to charge customers to check a bag to see that oppressive reviews of new applications could be in the works for every smartphone platform.

Don’t think it can’t happen – three years ago, did it even cross you mind that you might one day have to pay an extra $25 just to take a suitcase along when you flew to grandma’s for a week?

And the other frightening thought in all of this – where does Apple’s innovation go from here? Can we expect more trendsetting and ground breaking products from a company that has joined the ranks of the “profit at all costs” behemoths? Not likely.

We’ve been using Sitecore for our own website and for client’s websites because of its incredible power and functionality. Now Sitecore has also been recognized by independent research firm Forrester Research as a top CMS.

Forrester Research points out what the experts at Webdatamation could tell you — the flexibility and power of Sitecore make it strong in areas where competitors are weak.

The system is excellent for ease in creating content and integrating the content into a site, managing the workflow, and integrating content.

Sitecore also gets high marks for its ability to effectively target sites and content, having a global approach, integrating numerous sites, and for its community controls.

Sitecore leads out in multilingual content and in providing the means for making a separation between content and the presentation. This creates a dynamic environment for delivering the message and for using graphics and text in other contexts for different purposes.

Webdatamation chose Sitecore in part because it is a powerful solution for both simple websites as well as complex, fully powered sites.

The features of Sitecore allow for a highly flexible website that can integrate all of the Web 2.0 features.  Marketing departments can add website content or sales information to a company site easily without a great deal of technical knowledge, and still maintain a professional and responsive site.

It’s simple to integrate any analytic tools  and other business software into the Sitecore system, and it’s compatible with ecommerce products so that customers and site visitors have a seamless and enjoyable experience on your site.

We also like Sitecore because of their constant updates, research and trend forecasting. We know that our customers will have all the latest tools at their fingertips as soon as they are available.

If you haven’t yet seen what Sitecore can do for you, contact us at Webdatamation and let us give you a glimpse.

iPhone owners are a desirable demographic for any business, but technology ones in particular. These customers like to see themselves as unique and creative, and they are generally early adopters.

If you can create a clever, functional or fun app for the iPhone, either free or paid, and connect it organically with your company and your company name or logo, then you will have a great match that will build not only your brand and brand loyalty, but will connect you to the iPhone community.

If you don’t have the expertise or understanding of development but want to reach the iPhone market, come to Webdatamation with an idea for an iPhone app, and let us take it from there.

Apple is a proprietary company, and all apps for the iPhone are sold in the Apple Apps Store. You can offer an app for free, or you can charge for it. There is no charge to you if you offer the app for free, and if you charge, then Apple keeps 30 percent of the sales price and you keep 70 percent.

There’s another possibility as well – give away a stripped down version for free, then charge a fee for a more developed, feature filled version.

It’s not a bad deal in many ways, since you set your own price for the app, you pay no hosting fees, Apple will send you a revenue check each month, and you don’t need to open a credit card account or worry about marketing.

Apple has a development program, Software Development Kit or SDK, that developers use to develop iPhone apps. Third party programs are out there that streamline the development process, not just for iPhone, but for android as well.

Games, from simple to more complex, are the top apps for the iPhone. With its high resolution screen and accelerometer, the iPhone is the perfect mobile gaming device. Weather, shopping and radio programs are also popular.

Smartphone apps are a great way to get your name out into the hands of the techy crowd and do some fun and subtle promotion of your product and site that people voluntarily bring into their lives. It’s a win for marketing and a win for your customer, so iPhone app development is a great way to go.

There are more keywords under the surface than their are keywords revealed. Leave it to most businesses to always want to go bigger, better and over the top in an attempt to conquer the most powerful or most searched keywords in a niche or take on the major players for vanity plate keywords.

Not to say that the competitive nature in most of us doesn’t get the best of us, who doesn’t want to rank higher in Google, Yahoo, MSN or Ask? The key is asking yourself about time to market, topical continuity, relevance and conversion and if you would rather keep your eggs in one basket or spread around the risk to offset the odds.

Does a visitor care how many competing page there are for the query they execute (such as 1 of 10 of 100,000 results or 1 of 10 of 100,000,000?), hardly, but does an SEO or a business targeting that keyword, you bet they do, since they have to climb that mountain to reach the top 10.

Going back to behavior, is the need to necessitate a keyword victory over a competitor really matter if the keyword performs poorly? I can assure you, not every keyword is laced in gold. The idea that as soon as you get that one magic phrase, your business is in the clear is a reality that can change.

The premise of search behavior shifting can leave a 6 month exodus of trying to achieve one specific keyword or phrase flat if people simply stop searching for that exact phrase, which leads to my conclusion.

Don’t Assume, You Either Know or You Don’t Know:

Hedging your SEO efforts, such as tackling 50 keywords vs. 5 is one way eliminate the dependency on any one keyword or another to save the day. Just create focused content with a clearly delineated objective, since there is no limit to how thorough your content can be [think wikipedia but on a smaller scale].

The assumption in the heading suggests:

1) You never know exactly how search engine algorithms are going to slice and dice your pages or how many or few keywords each page can rank for. We can speculate, but organic SEO can really deliver traffic.

This means that relevance for a query can align from a keyword from the title, another keyword from the URL string, another keyword gets latched on from a description tag and yet another portion of the keyword in the body copy of the document. Even though the snippets returned in the search result is what is above the surface, you never know how deep a search query can go into your site, one page or all of your pages to assess relevance.

The point being, unless you have a crystal ball or write the algorithm (which I doubt) then such things are constantly being tweaked and adjusted to return more relevant results. So, the more narrow your keyword focus, the more of the market you potentially miss.

2) If site architecture, content and linking are implemented properly (optimized) then each page can rank specifically for numerous “exact match” and “broad match” (general) keywords and phrases with the same effort of just a few keywords. The key is each page owns a focus or range or phrases it targets, then you coordinate the pages to work as a collective masterpiece.

The takeaway is, the web is a work in progress so don’t obsess and just target 10 phrases, with a bit more energy and effort you can target 100 long-tail phrases that may collectively deliver 10 times the traffic daily than a vanity plate (common sense keyword) based on (partial) keyword research.

The way you find gems like that are (1) check your bounce rates and look for semantic similarities to base your next batch of posts or articles (if you have a blog). The search algorithm sees your pages differently than you do, however the idea is to work with it, not against it.

Keyword tools can only call it as they see it, but since the majority of searches are based on the subjective mindset and search behavior of millions of unique minds, the common threads are not as common as we surmise.

For every common sense keyword or root phrase based on captured data, there are 100 more long-tail equivalents you could rank for as well with a few slight tweaks to titles, links and layout. So, does tunnel vision on the top 2 or number 1 keyword in your market have you obsessed?

If so, then it may be time to step back, reassess your ranking objectives and implement a long-tail SEO campaign to get you over the hump until your major keywords take the stage in the top 10.

]]> http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/11/unique-search-targeting-semantic-root-phrases-and-keywords/feed/ 0 http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/11/every-word-is-a-keyword-for-seo/ http://www.webdatasource.com/2008/11/every-word-is-a-keyword-for-seo/#comments Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:58:44 +0000 Jeffrey Smith http://www.seodesignsolutions.com/blog/?p=433 You have to look beyond keyword research if you want to be one of those companies that always appears at the top of search results. This implies knowing how to create traditional appeal in non traditional ways.

However, what does that mean specifically? We know that doubling conversion does not necessarily mean you have to double your traffic.

It means that you just have to create more lucrative cross-sections or co-occurrence of keywords (or pages) that appeal to your target audience. This feat is easily accomplished with SEO and within the context of your pages using cross-sections of keywords that will draw an audience based on the content and market focus.

This method is critical for successfully connecting to people, especially online when you have no physical cues to tell you about a person. In essence, you have to lose your own identity at first, in order to get a better idea of how to best connect to someone new. When you approach a potential link partner, you know very little about that person except for a few clues picked up in the analysis of the site that he or she controls. Your best bet is to pick up that information as quickly as possible, because you have a very limited amount of time to make or break that connection.
Personas makes use of the ethnographic method in SEO and are intensely valuable. This process helps you learn about your audience and mindset, and the resulting personas can help you to compare the output of your efforts to the target market in question. It’s commonplace to use personas in areas like usability and social media, but they also can be a tremendous help when written specifically for link development. An audience IS an audience, after all.

Writing personas

To get started on writing a few personas, you have to think about your target audience for link building, in the same way that you’d think about it for anything else related to marketing. Who are these people, what are their age groups, what is their “culture”, what will speak to them and open up the connection in a positive manner? If you’re in doubt about your target audience, talk to the owner of the site you’re working on. Once you get basic information, start to dream up a few actual people who fit the profiles that you have, and flesh them out as much as you can.

A typical persona should contain as much identifying information as possible without being so unique that it cannot be used to speak to a larger group. That’s the tricky part, but you can overcome it by imagining common characteristics of users (they like punk rock) rather than specifics that will only fit a tiny percentage of your audience (they like early Avail). Start out by identifying a few different segments of your audience, writing a persona for each. Once you have these, take one and read it until you can get into the mindset of it, and write your link request accordingly. Remember that this persona represents your target link partners, so make use of language and references that this group will respond to, and adjust as needed.

Sample persona

Below is a persona created by one of my link builders for use on a restaurant review site:

Caren is a 43 year old mother of 3. Her children are 15, 17, and 21. Before having children, Caren obtained a degree in elementary education and taught until her second child was born. Since then, she has been a stay at home mom. She has been in charge of cleaning, cooking, carpooling to and from soccer and rugby practices. Her oldest child is attending a university in the city. Her husband is the local family doctor and can still be found making house calls. Caren’s happiness comes from her family and baking. She bakes often and makes the occasional trip into the city to check in on her oldest child.

This persona does make use of some serious specific. However, that’s just so we can get into the mindset of knowing how to approach someone like Caren. If you take the basics, you’ll see our target market for link building here, which is a woman in her 40s who wants a few restaurant suggestions for when she’s in the big city every now and then. We hope to approach the Carens of the world in such a way that they will find it in their hearts to link to our site. Thus, we probably aren’t going to speak to them as if they’re college-age males who are heavily into sports. We also can make more informed decisions on other relevant sites to approach for link building once we’re in Caren’s mindset, as we think about other interests that someone like Caren might have. Once you have the basics (woman in her 40s making a few trips to the big city), you’re well on your way to identifying other types of interests that Caren might have. Armed with this information, your link building efforts should be just the slightest bit easier.

The three entities involved in PPC advertising are the visitor, the host that carries the advertisement and the advertiser, who has advertised a product or service on the host website, usually a leading search engine. In this form of advertising, advertisers have to bid on keywords and phrases. Whenever someone searches a product or service using certain keywords, the search result page will feature those advertisements which contain the keywords using which the visitor actually searched in the first place.

The internet is fast becoming the battle ground for business to garner their share of the market. With increasing internet usage, people around the world are searching for all sorts of products and services online these days. It has therefore become important for almost every business to have a significant online presence. Merely having an online presence though will not guarantee business. Websites need to attract traffic and this is where PPC advertising steps in.

PPC advertising is growing rapidly at a mind boggling pace. Its popularity can be gauged from the fact that out of the total amount of money that is spent on search engine advertising, a whopping 81% is spent on PPC advertising. These figures do not come as a surprise to those businesses that have benefited from PPC advertising. There are several success stories of businesses that have been able to make the most out of PPC advertising campaigns.

The key reasons for the popularity of PPC advertising include:

1. The risk involved is low since the investment is minimal.
2. These advertising programs are fast to implement when compared to other media.
3. Advertisers can manipulate ad positions and also control costs with them.
4. Instantaneous results are a good possibility with PPC advertising.
5. PPC advertisements give an opportunity for businesses to test their products for online marketing feasibility.

PPC: A Brief History

Contrary to popular perception PPC advertisements are not a recent phenomenon. They have been in existence for well over a decade now. The term was increasingly heard during the mid 1990s when the dotcom boom happened. One of the companies that pioneered the concept was goto.com which later on was rechristened Overture. In 2003 Yahoo took over Overture. The actual PPC scene began to see hectic activities once Google launched its ‘Ad Words solution to PPC. Almost every major search engine is into this form of advertising these days.

The minimum price for click which is popularly referred to as ‘cost per click’ varies from one search engine to another. It also depends on the competition involved for a particular keyword list or phrase. It is for this reason that particular keywords and phrases are known to cost more on leading search engines.

Steps Involved in an Effective PPC Advertising Campaign

Although PPC advertising can look a relatively simple process, there are several issues that you will need to deal with once you decide on an advertising campaign. From choosing the right keywords to designing an attractive landing page, you will need to take care of several aspects.

A PPC Ad.
Several businesses have taken advantage of PPC advertising to make profits. With proper planning, you can implement a meaningful PPC advertising campaign, which can in turn mean more profits to your business. Let us look at the steps involved in making an effective PPC advertising campaign.

1. Selection of the appropriate keywords or phrases is the first step involved in PPC advertising. Remember, keywords and phrases are the cornerstones of success in a PPC advertising campaign. They are the foundation on which the entire campaign is built upon and developed. If you are already advertising on other media, then you also need to ensure that your PPC advertising campaign also complements them too.
2. Before you implement your PPC advertising campaign, you must first of all decide your budget. Proper planning will ensure that you do not overspend, while at the same time get effective results from your advertising campaign.
3. You must be clear as to who your target consumers are. This way you will ensure that you reach potential consumers through effective advertisements.
4. One way to target your target consumers would be to decide on a niche. Even if your niche market were to be small, a well directed and created PPC advertising campaigns can work wonders for your niche business area.
5. It is not enough if you just advertise and then assume that it would be effective in getting more business. You should constantly monitor your PPC advertising campaign. Always remember that the internet is a dynamic place, where things change very fast. You therefore need to make sure that your PPC campaign is in tune with the changing trends.
6. You must have a close look at statistical reports that are associated with your online advertising campaign. This will help you gauge the effectiveness of your PPC advertising campaign.
7. The best way to go about creating a PPC advertising campaign would be to hire the services of professionals. This is so because they will be experienced in creating the right copy or content for your PPC advertisement. A well written and concise copy can make the difference between success and failure in a PPC advertising campaign.
8. Along with working on your PPC advertisement, you should also simultaneously make sure that your website is attractive and easy to navigate, since your PPC advertisement will be leading web visitors to your website.

This form of advertising ensures a win-win situation of all the parties involved and it is no wonder that it is growing at a rapid rate. With increasing internet connections, the future holds immense possibilities for PPC advertising.

Over 80% of consumers hot on the trail of a product or service have a higher propensity of clicking the top 3 search results when presented with the top 10 websites for their query. If a user has to scroll below the fold the click through numbers taper down to the remaining percentages.

However, depending on factors such as:

1) the competition for the phrase

2) the relevance to the searchers intent and

3) the emotional click-triggers from the snippet/description in the search result (and how sticky it is) impact who gets the click.

Obviously, the more keywords that encroach on a topic, the higher percentage for conversion you have from those topics, when each of the pages becomes buoyant after gaining some authority in search engines (typically 2-4 months).

In closing, here is a brief SEO keyword exercise you can use to spread your semantic net a bit wider to funnel and capture more broad and exact match traffic for your pages.

This phenomenon is based on keyword stemming and Pair phrase indexing. The translation here; the more related keywords you have on a page or that reference a page, the higher the relevance for the related keywords.

I have mentioned before that any word on the page is a keyword when combined with the right synergy of on page and off page factors.

So, you never know what may emerge from the vacuum when a query is executed and just how Google, Yahoo or MSN may extract content and keywords from 1 page, 3 pages 10 pages or more from your site to combine an aggregate relevance score for your website vs. your competition.

It is not always clear cut and dried as this (such as the chronology of content and sheer volume) to outrank your competition. However, if you are constantly producing quality content in quantity with this in mind, the likelihood of your site hitting hub status as a resource for search engines to share with their readers is only a matter of time.

Keyword stemming is the premise of topical content reaching critical mass and sending key indicators to search engines that the subject is thoroughly present and saturated within your website.

The more semantic derivatives that exist in your pages, the higher your relevance for the keywords or niche in question.

As an example, just think of Wikipedia and how they virtually rank for every imaginable keyword as a result of (a) their massive internal index of pages and (b) the way they structure their site and (c) the way they cross link to their own content using synonyms and exact match anchor text (the text in the link).

As a result, the topical pools of information they leave behind in the cloud (via cloud computing) drive traffic to related web pages based on this basic premise. We know from SEO that When a keyword is present on a page, the density, frequency and prominence all have an impact as well as how many related pages on the topic exist in your site.

What we are proposing is, since semantic phrases overlap and reinforce relevance, the idea is to use the additional keywords discovered from a thesaurus to shore up islands of content for search engines.

For example, by adding 15 new related keywords to a page that already has relevance for related keywords, the amount of broad match traffic you can attract is exponential.

Over time, new relationships form between pages and phrases to raise the bar for how your site fares in search engines.

Now, for the exercise

1 – pick a keyword you want to reinforce.

2 – use the search command site:website.com keyword in a Google search box to find the target page with the highest occurrence of the keyword (to serve as the preferred landing page since search engines already have opted for that page).

3 – open the thesaurus tool and type in the keyword to find alternative phrases

4 – from the pages below the first result from step 2 (the other 9 below the number 1 spot), edit the page and add or change content to include the new keywords from the thesaurus.

5- from those new / related keywords, link back to the preferred landing / target page.

6 – use this tactic to funnel more traffic, it works since search results often combine a word from the title, another keyword from the description, a word or two from the actual page when searching for the top 1000 websites for any given query.

This is like discovering traffic you never knew existing, since it was latent within your website from lack of expression. More synonyms mean traffic with a very specific intent can find you when they need it most (when executing a focused search).

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