Interesting post from SearchEngineLand.com on a test conducted in Yahoo regarding support of the meta keyword tag. Yahoo was supposed to have dropped support of the tag but this test and one I conducted might prove otherwise. I went to Yahoo and entered a misspelling of leukemia and found one of our clients as the top result. The only misspelling of the term is within the meta keyword tag.

So would I go as far as saying the meta keyword tag is important and make sure you have all of your keywords in it? No, but I would say it can be used to help with terms that might have less competition like a misspelling.

Google’s Matt Cutts announced recently a new infrastructure is being tested called Caffeine. We’ve been monitoring this new update and have found very few changes but thought we might mention a couple of those changes over the existing infrastructure.

• Less blended results - It appears there might be less video and blended results.
• Exact Match Domain Names - There may be slightly more weight being given to exact match domain names.
• More weight given to authority sites - We checked several very specific keywords including long tail and found more authority sites with better positions than the same check in the current infrastructure.
• More pages indexed - We searched SEO and the Caffeine results produced 238,000,000 for seo. while the current infrastructure produced 191,000,000 for seo. We tried this with about 5 other very generic keywords and the results were similar.

This is all very early and certainly not set in stone but at first peak if you’ve done a good job of optimizing your site you should not see significant changes when Caffeine goes live.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from the Apple board of directors. On the surface this could be another business announcement like thousands of others everyday. Underneath the surface this could be a bigger indication that the real battle Google is going to have to fight is not with Microsoft or Yahoo but instead is with Apple.

Several products from both are clearly in competition including:

• Mobile - The iPhone is now being challenged by smartphones using Googles Android system.
• Browser - Google’s Chrome since it’s release has beaten Apples Safari in market share
• Operating System - While Google hasn’t released their new Chrome OS one could call it a potential rival to Mac OS X

I don’t think Google is not looking at Microsoft & Yahoo as competitors, I do think they have Apple in their crosshairs.

The Info Group recently received Company Certification status from Microsoft adExcellence. Three employees are required to successfully manage a paid search campaign through Microsoft adCenter and pass the adExcellence test. Mark & Andy Stone and Scott Mattiza all completed the certification process with flying colors.

National Telesystems a business phone sales and service company based in the DFW metroplex has partnered with The Info Group to improve their organic search visibility and pay per click campaigns.

I wish I was brave enough to have spinners on my wheels, a custom paint job with purple as the primary color, a braided goatee that hangs to my belly button and … well you get the idea, I would be so pimped out it would scare a pimp. That in mind, why not take the first step and pimp my Nintendo?

Spectrum Diamonds has signed The Info Group to help brand their new diamond engagement and wedding ring collection The Sylvie Collection with a national search engine marketing campaign. The campaign will focus on increasing brand awareness of this new collection, targeting searchers looking for engagement and wedding rings.

We would like to welcome Dallas Light Bulb to the fold. Dallas Light Bulb has just launched an online B2C store to service retail shoppers in the U.S. and has contracted with us to implement a search marketing campaign.

From cfl bulbs to hard to find bulbs to everything in between, Dallas Light Bulb is truly a Lighting Superstore and with a professional staff knowledgable on everything light bulb you are in great hands.

I finally took a few days away from everything and got my Google Qualified Advertising Professional certification.

To get this recognition I:
• Accepted the terms of the Google Qualified Advertising Professional program.
• Managed at least one AdWords account in a master account for 90 days.
• Built and maintained the Google Qualified Advertising Professional 90-day spend requirement.
• Passed the Google Advertising Professional Exam. (I won’t reveal my score but suffice it to say I could make the honor roll)

The next step is Microsoft adExcellence certification. Yahoo has discontinued their ad professional certifications.

On occasion I like to do keyword searches as they relate to our business and in particular the market we target which is regional/local and I’m always amazed at the sales pitches from other SEM agencies but more so from advertising agencies who are selling search marketing services.

What amazes me is to read their sales pitch on how important search marketing is to a company yet when you do a search for keywords relating to SEO or search engine marketing these agencies don’t come up within the first 4 or 5 pages of organic results. Instead where you find them is paid search only, this ought to be a clue they don’t practice what they preach or don’t have the experience to deliver real results.

This goes to my headline, why would you buy SEM services from a company who can’t do it for themselves? Why would you hire an ad agency for a search engine optimization project when they don’t show up in organic listings? How could you trust they know what they are doing when they have not managed to do it for themselves?

Quite often I’ve taken a sales call and the first words out of the prospects mouth were I searched for SEO Dallas and you guys were in the top listings so I figured if you could do it for yourself you could do it for me.

Anyone can open a Adwords account and start a paid search campaign and anyone can fill up a keyword tag so don’t be fooled by the ad agency who dabbles in search marketing, ask them to prove it. Ask them what keywords they show up for in the organic listings, if they can’t show you lots of front page results tell them to have a nice day. Search marketing is about both organic and paid search not just one or the other.

You wouldn’t hire a car mechanic who couldn’t fix his own car so why would you hire an ad agency who doesn’t show up in the search engines?