Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology at Google, was the first person founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired to help develop what has now become the world’s premier information resource. After 11 years, Silverstein is still with the company and exudes much excitement about its past and future…not to mention the possibilities in mobile and social search.

One interesting side note about Craig…he was visiting my hometown of Gainesville, Florida for his 20-year high school reunion, which coincidentally, is the same high school I graduated from 9 years later.

But while he was in town, he thought he would take a couple hours and speak to the community he called home during his childhood. While the audience was mainly interested people in the community who were not necessarily interested in Google’s algorithm and ranking high in the search results, he did touch on a few of those things and other issues that will be a big part of any online marketers life.

Specifically, the development of mobile and social search technology are increasingly becoming ways people are finding information online.

With regards to mobile search, more and more people are using “smart phones” like BlackBerry, IPhone and even Google’s smart phone, the Anroid. In the future, and closer than we think according to Silverstein, people’s primary device for finding information will be their mobile devices.

Think about it – you’re visiting a town and need to find a place to eat. Or, you need to find a place to get a haircut. Flip out your phone, do a search and voila, you got a list of different businesses in the area you’re in.

We’ve mentioned before the importance of local search, especially if you’re a local business like a restaurant or store. If you fall into this category, you will certainly need to have mobile search on your radar screen going forward.

Social search, which Google pursues through its Google Buzz, Google Wave and its new Google Me is another area that’s seeing tremendous growth. Of course, Facebook is the king of social networks right now and as you know is pursuing social search with a vengeance.

Why is social search important? Not only do people enjoy finding information on their own, they also like to ask their friends about products, ideas or whatever. Since trusting an online source is harder to do (you never see the person on the other side), Internet users want to be able to interact with people they know and find information that way as well.

And perhaps one of the most fascinating technologies for the future of search – voice search. That’s right, instead of typing in your search terms, you can simply say what you’re looking for. Google is working on voice translation technology to take your spoken words and translate them into written words.

Much of Craig’s talk though centered on Google’s history and the history of search in general. Google wasn’t the first search engine – even in the online world.

In fact, the first search engine was the Bible concordance, a reference manual for terms found within the Bible. But instead of it being like an encyclopedia or dictionary where you look up a word and find its meaning, the concordances took a word and told you where you could find them in the Bible.

Fundamentally speaking, this is how search engines work. You take a keyword phrase, type it in and see where on the Internet that word appears. And when search engines were new, that’s about all it involved…keywords and the number of times they appeared on a page.

Of course, search engines have evolved way beyond this.

Concordances were simply correct. Then with the advent of Google and PageRank, searches are not only correct but authoritative as well. Pages with higher PageRank were seen as being more trustworthy. Now, a good result is considered correct, authoritative (trustworthy) AND timely as well.

We’re seeing this play out in Google’s development (think Caffeine/algorithmic updates).

At the conclusion of Silverstein’s remarks at his childhood synagogue, Craig took questions from the audience. Most of them were about different technologies and efforts the company is working on like Google TV. The last question was about Google Fiber and Gainesville’s application to be the first site of this venture.

Unfortunately for the Gator Nation though, Craig doesn’t have anything to do with Google Fiber’s application process.

When I got the opportunity, I asked Craig about Caffeine and how the company expects the update to provide better search results for people. I knew he wouldn’t be able to answer a direct SEO question since in the end, they’re not going to share how their algorithm works too much because surprise, they make a lot of their money by selling PPC ads to companies.

But friends, I’m sorry to say that he didn’t answer much besides saying they do a lot of experimentation with a small set of searchers to see how things work before they go with it entirely. Beyond that, he told me point blank that he couldn’t go into that.

No worries, I understand. But the talk was still fascinating from the perspective of what we do at SEO Advantage and the past, present and future of search…which by the way, is nowhere near being fully developed.

Craig says that could be another 150 years from now! Wow, we got a long way to go!

In fact, many organizations are directing their users to their Facebook page instead of their actual sites because of its built-in social interactivity.

Many of our online experiences though still start through search – whether on Google, Bing or Facebook. If we’re looking for information or searching for a solution to a problem, we generally go and ask very broad questions and use broad terms to try and narrow down what we’re looking for.

Continue reading for some tips from Manoj Jasra at Search Engine Guide on how you can boost your Facebook page to the top of the search engines results page.

Number of Followers – The more followers your Facebook page has, the more back links…the more links you have, the more authoritative your page seems.

Fresh Content – Like regular web pages, the fresher your content is (wall posts, pictures, comments, etc.), the more frequently the spiders will crawl your site.

Include relevant content – Only post content on your Facebook page that helps improve its overall theme.

Keyword-rich URL – Be sure your Facebook URL contains keywords searchers use to find your products and services online.

Number of “Shares” or “Likes” – Having more “shares” and “Likes” will also boost your Facebook page to the top of the results. This shows your page is so compelling that people couldn’t simply look at it and move on, they had to share it.

Social media applications like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly important in effectively marketing your small business online. Going forward, any SEO or online marketer must factor these social networks into their marketing strategy.

This time last year, Microsoft’s Bing enjoyed the title of fastest growing search engine, experiencing 22% growth in its first year of existence.

But now, Bing can no longer claim that mantle as Twitter CEO Biz Stone proclaimed at the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, a gathering of the nation’s leading intelligentsia. Stone says Twitter is exceeding 800 million searches per day, which translates to 24 billion per month – almost twice as much as Bing and Yahoo combined!

(Last month, Bing had 4.1 billion searches and Yahoo had 9.4 billion)

Of course, this is nowhere near Google with over 88 billion searches a month but it’s quite respectable.

Lately, it’s been said you can jumpstart indexing of new content by posting it on Twitter in addition to your site since Google is constantly refreshing feeds from Twitter. With this newest data, you can safely assume many people are turning to Twitter to search for answers to their questions, news on current events and information on products and services.

Stone says Twitter has intentionally been trying to play this kind of angle – serving as not only a social network but a search engine as well. He argues there are many misconceptions regarding Twitter, saying that it’s “not a social network” but “…more like an information network or a source of news.”

Either way, Twitter is quickly becoming a relevant way to search for information online…we’ll see what some of the reports from comScore and others say when they come out. But if there’s any validity to Stone’s claims, you best consider how, when and if it’s wise for your business to jump in.

Evaluate the demand and presence of your industry on Twitter to get a better idea of when and how much effort you should put into it.

Normal crawling is reliable – just not quick enough sometimes…very inconsistent in other words.

Being reliable is great but if you’re 5 minutes late for the train, all the reliability in the world won’t matter if you’re inconsistent – show up early some days and late on others.

So, what can you do to get new content indexed faster in the search engines?

Continue reading for four tips on getting your site content indexed faster and check out the video below for more.

Update your XML sitemap and “ping” Google, etc.

Your XML sitemap is basically a file containing links to all of the pages on your site. Unlike an HTML sitemap, it is only visible to the search engines. Updating this file with links to new pages provides the search engine spider a one-stop place for finding everything on your site. So to get indexed faster, update your XML sitemap when you post new content. But instead of waiting for the spider to come, ping them through Google’s Webmaster Tools and let them know you have updated your file. If you ping, they will come.

Use Pubsubhubbub protocol

Pubsubhubbub protocol is a server-to-server web hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol that you can place in your site’s coding. You can create your own public or private hub that news aggregators like Google Reader, Friend Feed and Feedburner can use to find your new content. You can plug-in your Wordpress blog utility and Superfeeder to automate this process. Whenever you post new content to a PSH-compatible site, these aggregators will immediately be notified of your site’s new content.

Create a “tweet” on Twitter

We recently discussed this on SEOe – Can Twitter Get a Site Indexed in the Search Engines All by Itself? While it’s not a long term solution, “tweets” on Twitter can provide your site that initial boost to get the spiders to come and index your new content. Considering Google is now indexing “tweets,” simply posting an announcement of your new content will immediately be picked up by the search engine.

Ping-o-matic

Ping-o-matic is a service that allows you to “ping” a bunch of different web services and notify them of new content on your site, much like ringing an alarm bell to alert the world to your new stuff. Ping-o-matic is linked up with different blog directories and news aggregators like PostRank, News Gator, Bloglines, Google Blog Search and more.

It’s to your advantage to find different ways to get your site’s content crawled and indexed as quickly as possible. Your competition is likely working hard to do the same thing so you don’t want to be passive and think that great content alone will bring home the bacon. If a competitor is working hard to get their content indexed quickly, they will leave you in the dust quicker than you can blink.

Check out this video SEOMoz produced on the heels of the SMX Advanced conference for more.

However, as an online marketer, your chief concern will be the “like” button. If you haven’t done so already, you should at least include this function on your homepage and other important areas of your site.

As we mentioned when announcing these changes, the “like” button has the potential to radically change how data is connected online. With this new feature, users will be able to share sites with their friends whether they’re on Facebook or not. Simply clicking the button will connect their online identity with the page they’re viewing. It will also create a data record that advertisers and people in the user’s social network will be able to access.

When you place a “like” button on your website, you’re basically connecting your website to the social network. Different from Google’s algorithmic approach that’s completely impersonal, Facebook’s new model makes exploring the web a more “personalized experience.”

There are two ways you can add a “like” button from Facebook to your site:

1. I-frame code method

Can be generated on the Facebook developer site…content within the I-frame is hosted by Facebook so the social network will be able to tell if the person is logged in or not. If the user is logged in, they will be able to see which of their friends have “liked” the page.

If they are not logged in, they will be prompted to login or join Facebook.

2. JavaScript version also available

Like the I-frame code, the JavaScript version is also available on the Facebook developer site. It’s much like the other method except that it allows you to see profile pictures of your friends who “like” the same page more easily. Users can also comment on the links they like. Their “like” and personalized comment will be added to their status update.

Regardless of which way you ultimately choose, adding a “like” button to your website will make it easier for customers, friends and fans to connect with you and share your services online.  This reason alone makes adding a “like” button to your web pages a top priority.

We spoke the other day about whether Twitter is a good tool for getting your site indexed and ranked. While it can provide you with a good boost initially, you have to sustain that energy by following up with a good crawlable site that includes compelling, keyword-rich content.

So how can I optimize my ‘tweets’ for search that can translate into a good boost for my search engine rankings?

Continue reading for 5 steps you can use to optimize your ‘tweets’ for search.

1. Front Load Tweets

Treat your Twitter post like it’s a Meta description tag. You only have 140 characters to make your splash so be sure you put the most important part of your ‘tweet’ at the beginning.

2. Anchor Text

Be sure and get your anchor text into the URL you’re linking to from your ‘tweet.’ If you’re using a shortening service like bit.ly or j.mp (uri’s), use the custom naming options to get your anchor text in there. Use hyphens to separate words but don’t overdo it!

3. Custom Named Uri’s

When using a shortening service like bit.ly, you can take the first three words of your page’s title and use them as a custom uri, if appropriate. Start your ‘tweet’ with the URI and lead into the rest of the title and/or sentence, like a precursor. You can also include the URI in the middle or end of a sentence – it all depends on the document title.

4. Retweets

You can also recycle old ‘tweets’ that are still relevant. Front load retweets and unlike original ‘tweets,’ place credit at the end rather than the beginning. Other than that, treat retweets like you would a regular ‘tweet.’

5. Retweet Scrubbing

Go through your ‘tweets’ every so often and fix any case issues or typos you may find. You can even edit the title if the ‘tweet’s’ originator changed the title based on the destination document. This change fragments the meaning of a ‘tweet’ in some ways. Twitter’s new retweet feature prevents this from happening but doesn’t allow scrubbing.

These are just a handful of tips to get you started on harnessing Twitter to boost your site’s indexing and ranking potential. You would be surprised at what you can do in 140 characters or less!

A short discussion at WebMasterWorld says yes as one webmaster says his new blog was indeed indexed by Google. The webmaster was experimenting to see how quickly his site would be indexed by simply ‘tweeting’ out the new URL.

Much to his satisfaction, his site was indexed the same day he posted his ‘tweet.’

While he can’t say this event was 100% due to Twitter, he wasn’t terribly surprised his site was indexed so quickly considering the arrangement between Google and Twitter and subsequent amount of bot activity that tweets are generating these days.

Forum veteran “Tedster” says he isn’t entirely surprised either but neither he nor the webmaster suggest that tweets are the road to success. However, Tedster does say he knows of another site that got a page indexed and ranking with only Twitter links.

While this may seem to be a good way to jump start indexing and ranking, it’s by no means a sustainable strategy. To build and maintain high search engine rankings, webmasters have to include all of the elements – good site architecture, links and original, valuable content.

Twitter may be a good place for Google to discover and index new content but since it’s “real-time,” it certainly cannot provide sustained ranking or indexing power.

Therefore, Twitter can be a great tool in jump starting your site’s indexing and ranking but you must follow up with elements mentioned above to sustain and build your position in the search engines.

Basically, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg articulated a new vision for the social network and of Internet search in general – that ultimate vision is for a more social Internet replacing links between pages with relationships between people and things where information is shared between Facebook and other sites.

Facebook formally announced the addition of three features: social plug-ins, open graph protocol and graph API. The first two are more for programmers but today we’ll discuss social plug-ins since it will have the most practical impact on anyone who uses the Internet and Facebook in particular.

Facebook is the sun and other sites are the planets

This analogy is a simplified version of explaining Facebook’s vision that began two years ago with its release of Facebook Apps and then Facebook Connect which is now evolving into a larger initiative making Facebook the web’s hub.

Anyone who uses Facebook is aware of their social plug-ins – Like, Activity and Recommendations are the big three. Facebook’s new capabilities now allow websites to add a “Like” button on any page on their website, essentially making a Facebook “fan” page without actually creating one on the network. If a site visitor click “Like” on a webpage and they’re logged in to Facebook, it will be transmitted back to the social network and added to their profile and feed.

For example, the online review site Yelp is adding “Like” buttons to all of its local business profile pages. Say you click “Like” on a restaurant’s Yelp page and that information is transmitted back to your profile.

Whatever your “likes” are (a store, a band, a movie, etc.), they become part of your online identity and thus accessible to the publishers and sites in the “open graph” that Facebook envisions.

The other plugins – Activity and Recommendations – help make third party publisher sites more “social” by showing what your friends like or are doing on a respective website.

And now for the controversy

As you can probably see where this is going, many professionals in the online world question Facebook’s commitment to privacy with these changes. Let’s say you click the “like” button on your favorite restaurant’s Yelp page.

This information will now be on your Facebook profile and accessible to the particular business you like. They will be able to take your information, share it and use it to base their marketing strategy. The problem is this – all sharing of information needs to be authorized by the user and it won’t be now.

You have to consider whether you want people you’ve never met and probably will never meet to see what your tastes are and use that information to their benefit without your knowledge – certainly a troubling notion indeed when you think about it.

That may be okay if Facebook users are aware of it and can decide for themselves how much information they want to share but it’s clear that most will probably have no idea what’s going on and that’s where much of the concern lies.

Facebook will eventually be sitting on mountains of data – favorite restaurant, places, musicians, movies and more – that will be structured and associated with its millions of users.  In the future, all of that public identity information will become available to Bing and perhaps Google.

How will this affect my online marketing?

Well, that remains to be seen in many respects. On the surface, this may seem like a great way to plug in to the nearly ½ billion and growing subscribers to Facebook. Facebook’s vision is to transform the web from a Google-centric internet comprised of billions of unrelated documents and sites to one where social relationships and affiliations serve as the connective tissue in a vast network.

Only time will tell how this will play out but one reply on a WebMasterWorld thread says that if you do SEO, you should start learning how to do SEO in Facebook. And it’s not your typical SEO where you handle links. Instead, you work with advertising that targets particular demographics of your target market.

We’ll certainly stay on top of how these changes affect the SEO/online marketing world and share these insights with you as they become available. In the mean time, check back with us soon to learn how you can opt-out of Facebook’s new apparatus and learn more about their other two new features.

One of the biggest advantages of social networking – it’s the biggest and best word-of-mouth advertising medium you could ever ask for. Unfortunately, many websites still do not provide the capacity to share web pages and instead rely solely on testimonials, quotes and videos.

As more and more web users become “social” online and interact with their friends, you will need to factor this into your online marketing strategy. Many people look to their friends for insights and advice when they’re purchasing something – whether it’s online or in a traditional retail environment.

Continue reading for 4 ways you can make your website more social.

More interactive product reviews

Take a page from Amazon or Best Buy’s playbook, even if you’re a B2B company that sells your products through a distributor – make it simple for customers to provide reviews of the products they purchase. Replace your plain old testimonials with review functionality on product pages. Customers can help you sell by putting insights about your product right next to information you provide.

Encourage commenting

Give site visitors a sense of ownership and show that you care about their needs and concerns by allowing people to comment and share ideas. This can be as simple as allowing comments on your corporate blog to creating custom forums. Dell has a great one called Idea Storm where they gather feedback for future product development.

Allow customers to curate content

Developing, posting and maintaining a full website of engaging content can be quite the challenge. It’s time consuming and/or very costly to do. Save on this expense some and make your site social at the same time by allowing customers to submit industry related content they generate themselves or find elsewhere online. Allowing customers to do this means you’re providing improved thought leadership along with increasing brand recognition.

Make your own social network

If your site already requires customers to login to place orders or get technical support, why not make it more social? Amazon is one company that does this very well – coming about as close to their own social network as possible. Customers can login and find forums, product reviews and more. Making your “customer only” areas more social will help transition this part of your site from a place people only come when required to one where customers find real value.

As social networking becomes a bigger part of marketing online, those who implement things like this will find themselves ahead of the curve in regard to their search engine rankings – ultimately leading to more on-site activity and quality sales leads.

Saying your content is “old” however can be a bit misleading…if your blog has tips, insights and other general observations about your niche, readers will find it useful long after you initially write it. Content like this can be referred to as “evergreen” content.

Our friends over at HubSpot recently conducted an experiment with their evergreen content – using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about the rich content that’s on their blog, not just what visitors see on the main page.

At SEOe, we publish 3 feature posts/articles each week so it’s likely visitors and subscribers have not read every one of them. But considering the structure of our blog and what we write about, something from 6 months ago is likely relevant today.

Continue reading to see how over the course of two months, HubSpot promoted carefully selected “evergreen” blog posts, podcasts and other things to promote on social media sites. Their goal was to generate additional traffic without spending time creating new content.

1. Content Selection

To narrow down what they chose to promote, the team found prior articles that received the most comments, traffic and links. Timely content like breaking news events was excluded as were articles they felt were no longer relevant.

2. Promotion

Over the course of two months, the team promoted 57 items on Facebook and Twitter. Considering differences between the two, the team promoted 3 content items per workday on Twitter and 1 per workday on Facebook.

Another factor they considered was positioning the content…which was important since they didn’t want to interfere with promoting their new stuff.  And they didn’t want to make people think they were clicking on something old so they promoted items in a conversational tone rather than listing the title like they do for new articles.

Here’s an example of one of their “tweets,” which they posed as a question:

Stuck in a lead generation rut? Learn some new tips & tricks in our comprehensive Lead Gen Marketing Hub! http://bit.ly/LeadGenHub

To see the effectiveness of this experiment, the HubSpot team tracked the change in social media traffic to the blog. They also created unique “bit.ly” links to each of the content items and tracked clicks to those. On average, evergreen content received 198 clicks along with more traffic from Facebook/Twitter to their main blog.

Here’s one easy way to drive more traffic to your blog that doesn’t require much effort to research and implement. If you have a blog that serves as a “knowledge” resource for your readers, consider particular posts that are still relevant and promote them through Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.