

Droid: iDon't Understand Search Engine Optimization - KrisJordan
http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/microsite-search-engine-optimization

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flatline
Funniest part is, you can't view the site on an iPhone. First thing I tried
when I saw it was a flash site, seems like a terribly obvious oversight.

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fnid
Perhaps that's the point. iDont display flash websites either.

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blasdel
Droid doesn't

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fpgeek
For now.

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dabent
I'm pretty sure the verizonwireless.com domain has some serious trust within
Google already, not to mention inbound links that have "droid" in the name.
They don't need to do the on-page SEO Joe Blogger does.

That said, I really have to agree with this statement from the article: "As
far as microsites and marketing landing pages go, DroidDoes.com is out of this
world bad." I was really confused when I hit the page. It's like the opposite
of Apple's pages and not in a good way.

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tumult
Right, the site sucks (I hate Flash ad-sites especially) but that doesn't
really have much to do with "SEO" which Verizon clearly does not need any of.
What they need is a site that doesn't suck.

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radley
The Droid site is bad because it's poorly designed, not because it's Flash. As
a Flash developer the site makes _me_ cringe.

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nym
Seems like a cute design, but done on a budget by Verizon. Their oversight to
iPhones is possibly bigger than organic SERP.

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goodkarma
I visited the site because I saw their commercial on TV. I imagine most folks
will hear about it through their marketing campaigns.

They have plenty of smart folks over there - is it possible they did this
intentionally? If their goal is to promote a phone launching later this week,
perhaps SEO is not their top concern here?

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cakesy
Sure, why would they ever want extra hits from search engines (not just google
remember, no other search engine can see this properly either). Why would they
want extra traffic, surely they want to keep this a big a secret as possible??

The fact is that the people who did this have no idea, sure they can create
fancy flash, but they are ignorant of almost everything else about the web.

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tumult
<http://www.google.com/search?q=droid>

"Droid". First match. Has summary.

SEO is snake oil.

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byrneseyeview
The summary:

"Get to know Droid a little better. Droid Does the Network. Droid is exclusive
to Verizon Wireless, the most reliable network available."

If you didn't know what the Droid was, _what would you think it was_ , and
_why would you care_?

If you're not a VP of Marketing at Verizon, you're not going to like that
copy.

It's getting harder and harder to claim that SEO is snake oil. Companies like
Yelp and Mint have been built on SEO -- it's how they can out-market
Citysearch and Intuit. Simple and standards-aware design and factual copy get
you 90% of the way there; that last 10% is the difference between a solid site
and a $170M buyout.

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f00
There's also that little thing where Intuit and Citysearch fail to innovate
and have terrible products. That just _might_ have something to do with Yelp
and Mint's success.

