Travel Videos Coming to Universal Search Results?

Video is on its own track, running parallel to text search, not on the same track with text search the way local and image search is. What Google is to text search, YouTube is to video. This is an important concept to grasp.

YouTube is it's own thing. Go to Alexa.com and compare YouTube to Google.com. While Google has more reach than YouTube, YouTube has more pageviews than Google, and the daily traffic trend of YouTube is neck and neck. The Alexa Top Sites ranks YouTube the 3rd most trafficked website on the Internet, just behind Google and Yahoo. YouTube outpaces Facebook, MySpace, and even Wikipedia.

YouTube is it's own thing and should be considered on it's own terms, not as a subset of Text Search. YouTube is a true Internet gateway, just as Yahoo and Google are. YouTube is the premier gateway to video on the Internet. If it's not on YouTube, then in essence it does not exist on the Internet for a great majority of web surfers.

Video makes sense
It's easier to watch information than it is to read it. Sometimes information is better when it is viewed than read. Should video show up in a text search SERP? Yes, because in the context of certain searches (particularly entertainment searches) it makes sense. Video results in the SERPs currently seems to be limited to certain areas. For instance, it's not currently appearing in local type searches. However it might make sense in tourism related searches if there's a great video of a specific tourist area, like Las Ramblas or Golden Gate Bridge, or the Eiffel Tower, etc. If I were Google, I would take the kind of travel videos TurnHere does and throw those into tourist type searches. Things to do in Napa Valley, good restaurants in Manhattan, etc. then show links to video travelogues of wine country and video restaurant reviews. I think once the video content catches up to the queries, it's possible to see video links show up in a wider area of results via the Universal Search. Maybe not this year, but in the future. It's certainly useful.

Do a Google search for Travel Videos and you'll see YouTube advertising there. It's a start.

How to Build Links to Crappy Websites

Thanks Wiep for inspiring this post. Most of what was listed in that post will technically get links to a crappy site, but they're not likely going to help a site rank. So what I want to do is take the subject to the next level and discuss obtaining quality links to crap sites for the express purpose of making it rank.

Focus on improving ranks, not acquiring links
The whole point of gathering links is to rank better. To obtain links from crap sources just for the sake of aquiring links is not a strategy suitable for taking home to meet your mother. If it doesn't work it doesn't work, so why bother?

...you can submit your crap to dozens of SEO friendly directories that all look the same and almost instantly accept all kinds of crap.

Poor inbound links generally result in inadequate spidering, indexing, and most importantly poor ranking. If this kind of activity doesn't work for a legit site, why bother doing it for a crap site? What has to be undone is the underlying assumption that a crap site deserves and will only receive crap backlinks. It does not have to be that way. You just have to think about it a little harder.

Many years ago I befriended some men who were uh, ah... not conventionally good looking (or even unconventionally good looking, for that matter). Surprisingly, it was not unusual for them to walk out of nightclubs or bars with beautiful young women hanging from their arms. They were the most successful womanizers I had ever met. I asked them how they did it and their response was that they simply had to work harder, and work at it on a regular basis. From dancing better than everyone else, reading the latest novels, to perfecting the art of listening- they made it possible to "outrank" the more conventionally handsome men. Just because you are not conventionally attractive doesn't mean you can't have your pick of partners. Similarly, just because a site is crap doesn't mean it is doomed to crap backlinks.

1. Buy domains and websites
That's pretty fundamental. Some sites make money, some sites are good resources, attract links, but don't make money. Buy the link magnets, divert links to your site.

2. Develop sites that attract links
Same principle. I'm not going to get into the details of building sites that attract links, that's an entirely different post. However, recognizing there is always one smart ass who will observe that it's superficial to say "Develop sites that attract links" I'm going to provide some bullet points to better illustrate it. Here you go:

• Gossip
  


• Celebrity - Think of authors and politicians, not just Britney.
  
  
• Celebrity Subtopic: Ok, now we're back to Britney. Celebrities who are likely to choke on their own vomit hold some potential. BritneySpearsSuicide.com is taken, but the .net and .org are still out there at this moment. Don't be a freaking slacker. Think about these things a little harder, the ideas will come to you. Ingest some Ginko Biloba if you have to. :)


• New or popular products: Upcoming comics, games, etc. Find a trend wave, pull out your link board and surf it.
  


• Humor pieces like OddTodd.com
  


• Political pieces like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or any other anti-democrat, anti-republican, anti-environment...
  
  Getting the picture yet?

3. Buy links
Buy high quality links, don't bother with low quality links. This one is pretty obvious, but it should be mentioned.

4. Network at SEO conventions
Eat and drink and socialize with as many people as you can. You will develop link opportunities. I heard one guy at the MSN party at the Palms offering somone else 300,000 inbound links... FREE! Don't be a slacker, if those DrinkBait guys can come up with a decent way to get links to a domain, well dammit... you can too!

5. Great design is skin deep...
crap goes all the way down to the bone
Just because it's a crap site doesn't mean it has to LOOK like a crap site. Amazingly, a good looking site can attract the same authority links as your competition.

6. Porn site? No problem!
If the SuicideGirls porn site can attract 102 dot edu links, you can too! Don't be such a slacker. :)

7. I'm too busy to do your homework
Extra credit if you think of your own ways of obtaining high quality links to your crap website. Stop being a slacker, dammit. ;)