The Moz Blog

The Filing Cabinet Theory of Site Architecture

Last weekend at Scary SEO, Dave Snyder gave a very solid presentation on Information Environment Design…what the rest of us would call Information Architecture. Duncan Morris also wrote about information/site architecture on SEOmoz very recently. While absorbing both of these presentations, I couldn’t help but think once again of the analogy I repeatedly come back to when trying to explain Info/Site Architecture to people: the filing cabinet.

Which Presidential Candidate Do SEOs Prefer?

Today is Election Day in the United States, and, by most accounts, is an exceptionally important and historic one. I thought it would be valuable to get a look at the world of SEOs and how we're generally choosing to cast our ballots. There have been a few endorsements around the tech world:

How to Respond to a Subpoena for User Information

If you have a site that includes user-generated content, you may one day receive a subpoena asking you for personally identifying information about your users. Receiving a subpoena can be intimidating and you often don't have a lot of time to respond. This post is designed to give you some high-level steps to follow.

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 10/26/08

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: On Thursday, November 6th, Exact Target and Marketing Sherpa are launching a free, 8-part webinar series. They'll be extracting actionable intelligence from Marketing Sherpa's new 2009 Email Benchmark Guide. If you attend any of the sessions you'll receive $100 off the guide and $400 off Marketing Sherpa's Email Summit being held in March.

What Quantum of Solace Can Tell Us About Information Architecture

I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again: in my opinion, the number one reason for websites failing online is because they have a poor information architecture. Don't worry, I'm not going to compare myself to Bond. Instead, I'm going to use Quantum of Solace to demonstrate how something as simple as categorizing a new action movie can lead to some serious problems in your site architecture. (Just for the record, I tend to use the phrases 'site' or 'information architecture' interchangeably to cover a multitude of sins.)

Headsmacking Tip #9 - Vertical Content Can Earn You Links

For the next in my headsmacking series, I thought we'd look at the ever-challenging task of earning links to your site. Though it may seem daunting, sprinkling some creativity on the link acquisition puzzle can definitely make the process easier (and sometimes, more fun, too). One of the strategies that seems to elude many site owners and marketers is that of leveraging their vertical content t...

Are You Forcing Your Users to Superfluously Click?

Unnecessary clicks really put the "super" in "superfluous," yet we run into them all the time. Whether they're the fancy yet impractical creation by a site designer, a lazy workaround courtesy of an apathetic developer, or a misguided "I've been trying to architect this site for two months now and I can no longer see straight" decision by an SEO, these seemingly innocent clicks can have a negative impact on conversion rates or, simply put, they can irritate users. Below are a few examples of some clicks that cause me to grit my teeth and shake my fist.

Free Download: Link Building Report Template

After having recently lost a client largely due to my oafish reporting - I was sending them the raw logs of my link building activities without any explanation as to the thought process behind it - I decided to get serious about communicating better.

SEO Company Search Results - An Embarrassment to Google and the Other Engines

One of the central goals of all the major search engines has always been to limit the extent to which manipulative activity could affect the top search results. It's been my general opinion that there's no better place to start this enforcement than our field - search engine optimization - and the SEO companies that offer this service. It was therefore to my dismay to see the following search r...

Roundup Thursday for the Week of 10/19/08

Stories, news, and other notable items from the past week: * Dwight Silverman criticizes Valleywag writer Paul Boutin, who said that blogs are becoming obsolete and that nowadays all blogs are a "tsunami of paid bilge." Never mind the fact that Paul works fulltime at the SiliValley gossip blog. What a butthole.

Google Results Not cAsE sEnSiTiVe? Are You Sure?

There's been some talk in the past year of Google results appearing to be case sensitive. The phenomena appeared first in the UK and as of late in US as well. No, I'm not talking about crop circles. I'm surprised that much of this has been brushed off as datacenters or, perhaps, the anchor text of inbound links, as was smartly suggested in a recent Q+A here on the 'moz.

Have a Commercial Website? Then Digg Won't Like You

I'm a fan of Digg and visit it every day to read various stories and check out what's new. Every so often I comment on stories and submit stuff. I get a "woo hoo!" feeling whenever one of my comments gets a bunch of diggs or when a submission hits the home page, which, combined with the site's content and news stories, keeps me coming back for more. Sure, lots of people bash Digg...