Kate Morris details the qualities to look for when hiring a PPC or SEO manager. She writes up sample job descriptions, and compares and contrasts the similarities for each, including personal and organizational skills. For instance, similar skills include keyword research, copywriting, competitive research, and reporting. "The one major difference is that SEOs have to be self-starters," Morris writes. "SEOs have the task of navigating something that fewer people understand (or pretend to understand). SEOs have to work with IT people, web designers and executives that do not get anything, so they almost have to make their own …

Linkscape report users now have an index feature that produces up-to-the-minute data, according to Rand Fishkin. Users can expect updates about every four to five weeks. Upgrades to the Linkscape tool include a new basic reporting format, and data detail tab. Aside from touting the new features, Fishkin runs down some statistics from the crawl such as the number of URLs, domains, root domains, links, distributions of external links from the index, and more. "It's crazy to realize that if your page has 100 external links to it, you're in the top .1% of all pages on the …

The process of hiring a SEM firm is more akin to hiring a law firm or an accounting firm than an ad or service agency, according to George Michie. Search marketing has become more about "algorithms and execution of well understood principles," and less about the basics, he writes. Michie provides guidance on the types of questions you need to ask before signing the contract. For instance: How much money does your tenth largest client spend per month? While size isn't everything, this helps you get a sense of where your account will fit in among the firm's …

According to Ron Jones, getting a good quality score requires that you create relevance and continuity for the content throughout your site. He suggests beginning by building lots of ad groups with targeted keywords, about 15 to 20 per ad group. Matching options, SEO and quality scoring, and testing landing pages are a few topics Jones addresses. "Most people use the default broad match option, and neglect to branch out to try the other matching options," he writes. "Try adding exact match and phrase match keywords to each ad group and choose which one has the best quality …

A bunch of Web sites for temporary D.C. rentals during the inauguration are among those cashing in on Obama-mania with search ads, according to Fred Aun. One AdWords campaign has generated about $10,000 so far, Aun writes. Another, for National Event Rental, was begun directly after the election -- and was the only ad that showed up when you typed in the word "inauguration," according to the company's owner. Aum explains that a Google spokeswoman said searches on the word "inauguration" increased 75% during the last week, and are up more than 75% from the inauguration in 2005. …

A patent application filed by Yahoo provides hints as to how the search engine may deal with reciprocal linking in the future, according to Bill Slawski. The U.S. patent application No. 20090013033 identifies "excessively reciprocal links among Web entities." It discusses how Yahoo might look at those links between pages for reciprocal links and attempt to determine whether those links exist to manipulate search results, he explains. Yahoo has combined this patent with several other filings. One patent uses "Exceptional Changes in Webgraph Snapshots Over Time For Internet Entity Marking," Slawski notes. The patent application continually looks for …

In a blog post to Carol Bartz, Paul O'Brien lays it on the line in hopes Yahoo's new hire CEO will return the search giant to grandeur. O'Brien steps though Yahoo's accomplishments and mishaps, reminding Bartz that "Yahoo has the potential to be so much and yet it seemingly prefers to attempt to be everything by repeatedly reinventing the wheel (or buying new ones) instead of making the wheel fit a better car." O'Brien believes Yahoo "deserves to own online advertising," but the company and its technology needs help to get on track. Google may own search marketing …

Matt Cutts recently asked community members to submit ideas on which issues the Google webspam team should tackle in 2009. After the first 150, he did a rough tally, which revealed the No. 1 complaint was "empty review" sites. Cutts, who asks for examples from the community, provides instructions on reporting "bad user experiences." If specific pages on a site do not add value, Google typically removes it from the index without eliminating the entire site, Cutts explains. Other issues include eliminating videos full of spam that rank high in Google search results; and increased transparency for showing …

Peter Prestipino serves up five ways to help you save money on pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. He explains how to rethink the use of broad keyword matches; use ad scheduling; restructure campaigns; consider vertical and second-tier PPC providers; and monitor negative keywords to prevent them from appearing under certain keyword or key phrase combinations. When used correctly, the beauty of negative matching is that advertisers can filter out keywords when they do not want their ads shown, Prestipino writes. "If I sell a white paper on selecting domain names and want to attract aspiring domainers, I might bid on …

If you have been looking for the original Analyze tab at Feedburner.com, which Jessie Chavez and Matt Shobe admit has been the first stop for many publishers when checking their feed analytics for years, it has been replaced with a new chart that they believe communicates three times as much information in the same space and sets the stage for more interesting reporting in the future. Chavez and Shobe explain that information displayed on the 30-day chart now offers data on daily subscribers and reach, as well as the relationship between the two metrics. In the post you …