Interactive marketing and technology company Avenue A | Razorfish has launched Super-intelligent Link Crawler (SiLC), a tool that crawls Web sites to find errors such as broken links and "404 Error Messages" that inform users the Web page is not loading.
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| Avenue A | Razorfish Launches Link Crawler |
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The tool examines why errors occur and can measure a Web site's performance against competing sites. The company has combined the tool with its search engine optimization and Web design to improve search rankings for brands like U.S. News & World Report.
U.S. News & World Report recently redesigned its Web site to improve traffic and search capability for the site. After using the SiLC tool, Avenue A | Razorfish found search engines were not ranking many of its Web pages because they were flagging pages as duplicate content.
U.S. News & World Report created the main content of a health page article and a "printer friendly" version. The web crawlers were tracking both and not ranking the pages in search engine results. After the relaunch organic visits increased 24 percent and organic visits from Google increased 45 percent.
William Flaiz, vice president, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Web Analytics for Avenue A | Razorfish said, "SiLC is like a Swiss Army Knife that serves many purposes beyond web crawling."
"It is different than other web crawlers because it can intelligently process why certain web pages aren't performing well and integrate with other SEO tools to improve efficiencies not only within a web site, but to other linked Web sites, portals and blogs."
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Comments
SiLC
Yes, I am about to give SiLC a try. I will look for its speediness,selectivity and other features and see the pros and cons vis a vis W3C link validator and Xenu. Thanks for referral.
Razorfish - SiLC
The companies homepage offers very poor information about it. So forget it.
Strange they how they had to
Strange they how they had to use a piece of custom software to discover what Google tells you to do anyway in their webmaster guidelines:
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=4034...
advertisement for Avenue A?
Was this just a paid advertisement for Avenue A?
Avenue A "announces" a proprietary tool, that can't be evaluated by the community at large, and webpronews subsequently parrots their press release, but changes "announces" to "launches" (which would imply releasing it in the wild, but they're not).
At least c|net (http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13515_1-9752678-26.html) seems to have talked to AA before writing their blurb, whereas Mike's news item reads like an advertisement.
Way to go Mike! How much did you get paid for this one?
Not Paid
This was not a paid article. This was my source
plagarism?
So are you saying you plagiarised the businesswire release (which is just the AA release http://www.avenuea-razorfish.com/pressReleases/pr_20070731_SiLC.htm), and passed it off as an actual article for your readers?
Oh come on
You're obviously unclear on the concept of a press release. It's content released for the press to use as they see fit, without restriction. You read stories all the time that start with a press release, even if the publisher doesn't identify it as such, which is usually the case.
I can't help but think there's a little astroturfing going on in these comments. Anonymous commenters slamming us and AARF by association...I've seen this stuff before, and it smells like astroturfing to me.
The piece isn't a paid ad, nor is it even in the same neighborhood as plagiarism. Sometimes articles start with a press release, whether it's here, or on a one-person blog, or all the way to the top of the media pyramid.
Now, if you want to be annoyed that Razorfish doesn't have their keen new toy available for public access, that's fine, but that's a Razorfish issue. If you think that point should have been clearer in the article, that's a fair point.
Paid ad. Plagiarism. Sheesh. Give me a break.
AARF is more than welcome to
AARF is more than welcome to tout their new toy as the best thing since sliced bread, and you and the other tech news outfits are more than welcome to cover it. Just don't do it in a way that makes you look like a corporate shill, sheesh.
funny
Having had your idiotic (yes I said idiotic) claim of plagiarism blown to smithereens, you are falling back on a 'he's a shill!' claim.
I guess if we keep going down this path you'll eventually be accusing him of being a witch.
He simply wrote an article about a current event in the search sphere.
Michael McDonald Managing Editor iEntry, Inc.
Well, I didn't "claim"
Well, I didn't "claim" plagiarism, did I? I simply questioned, and inferred that the journalism aspect of an article is lacking, when there is nothing in the "article" but the press release. A bit pedantic I know, but it is a small detail you seem to have overlooked.
I think the very fact that Mike clarified the initial article with this: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/01/avenue-a-razorfish-clarifie... validates the point that there should have been more to the story it to begin with. And I commend him for taking the time to do it as a service to the readers/users of WPN.
Now, does the whole WPN news staff want to bandy about the whole Mike/duck/wood/witch thing or just you guys?
I can agree with you on the
I can agree with you on the point of needing a bit more info in his original article. He perhaps could've been a bit more clear with his description of the tool.
The follow up article was an attempt to provide some more of that information. We also had Mike call them up and podcasted their conversation.
Michael McDonald Managing Editor iEntry, Inc.
It seems like a SiLC is a
It seems like a SiLC is a proprietary tool ... whats the point of the article... the author must be getting commission to get the word out ... very deceptive writing...
Yes, Webpronews did a disguised paid ad for Razorfish
This article is a paid ad disguised as a legitimate article. This is on the cnet site:
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13515_1-9752678-26.htm
"SiLC will remain a proprietary tool for Avenue A/Razorfish, so unless you are working directly with it as one of its clients, this tool is unavailable to you."
welcome to the nursery
What a whiney buncy of nerds! link don't work boo hoo hoo. Seriously though, it's sad.
DONT BOTHER! :-(
Why bother to even print the article, you have all of these readers trying to check out the product, and they can't. Then they go to the company’s web site to look for the tool to download, and nothing! Not even a download page. I would think that WPN would make sure that there are sufficient links to the company’s web site to support the main article. If you’re going to publish it as the story, make sure you or the company of interest can support it! You shouldn’t be building up all the expectations, and then not produce.
Were I can find it?
Why don't you provide url for this site. Now I'm trying to test it ))
Their web site
Confusing.
Pretty, but hard to navigate.
Seems it is almost all about ringing their own bell, and generalized descriptions with little or no specifics.
I guess they want us to call them so they can upsell us....
This is the internet era.
I was intrigued by your description of the service, but found myself at a loss, and uninterested when I browsed their site.
Flash intro? Come on, a simple graphical image would do just fine. Why all the 'prety' with nothing to even see how to buy their product, or specifications.
Maybe it's there, but I left in disgust.
So it's not just me?
The Razor sight is very professional looking, but short on "real" info. No mention of the tool, searched forever thinking I must have just missed it. Glad to know that it is not just me.
Link Crawler
How much does it cost
Razorfish
I guess you must be fishing. There is no link to download the application and all the search efforts through your pages are a waste of time.
Terrible approach by Mike Sachoff to publish as article without sufficient links or information.
A disservice to your readers!
Is this software free? or
Is this software free? or do you have to hire AARF for millions in order to access it?
Not a new AARF tool
SiLC is not a new tool for AARF. In fact, the SEO team there has been using it well over a year. I would know, since I used it when I worked there!
Congrats to the SEO dept. there though, this is great recognition. We always knew that we were ahead of the curve. Great people and great minds still exist in AARF's SEO dept.
Web tools
Wow, sounds like a great web tool. Are small guys like me able to use these tools or are they tools for just the big guys?
Another Solution to add to the others
Yeah, no link to the official story or the information on how to get it. Also, I found the article lacking in details. Using percentages to show increases rather than real numbers is always a red flag to me.
Also, what exactly does the infomation from the crawler have to do with traffic increaes after a relaunch? I mean, what else was done that had nothing to do with the SI link crawler that could also have affected the results.
We use Xenu for our link analysis and while a basic free tool, we find it very effective and I'm not sure what benefit SILC would give when you have a 404 or broken link. Duh, you have to fix it...! :-)
As a marketing tool for AA I'm not impressed and would expect more from a company with their reputation. I might have a different opinion if I could SEE the tool and try it. Does it cost over or under $500 a month?
xenu
we use xenu too =) good to know others have found that useful lil resource.
you said you're not impressed with their SILC. have you tried it? you discuss it like you've tried it. just curious.
Links
Here, try these:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news...
www.avenuea-razorfish.com
But "All three SEO tools are available immediately to all Avenue A | Razorfish customers globally. Prices vary based on customization and level of analysis."
I just looked around their site and then used site:http://www.avenuea-razorfish.com/ silc at google and I can't find anything about this on their site.
Note to AA: It might be a good idea to add your own press release to your site so people find SOMETHING when they visit...
SiLC
So how do you try it ?
Is there a download ?
link crawler
Yes I would use it if I knew how to access it. Please advise
LINK???
I could not agree more -- where is the link for more information on SiLC?!
Where is SiLC launched ?
Mike,
You have linked to the US World News Report page and you have linked to labs.google.com, but where is the link to Razor's SiLC ?
This article is useless without that link!!
Do you guys ever think about the users ?
Link
I did link to Avenue A/ RazorFish site. We always think about the user. Thanks for reading.
Mike
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