SEOSEM in OZ

Looking a little closer

In Just the Basics is a short checklist to illustrate the steps to making a website visible to the larger web and drive traffic to it. Let's take a closer look at the steps, one by one.

Attract new visitors
Get your site listed in search engines and directories:

• Submit site to Google and other search engines    
• Submit site to Yahoo! and other directories    
• Revise site as needed to improve search rank 

People use Google every day. Customers expect a business to have a website. Every website owner wishes wants their website to bee seen. Yet many never realize that unless they tell the search engines and directories the site exists, there's a good chance it will never be found.
In fact, more than half the webpages on the Net are not listed anywhere.

Did you notice the change? Websites were the topic, then in the last sentence, webpages.
That's an important distinction for a business since most businesses offer more than one service or product. And each product or service commonly goes on a different page.
Search engines and directories need to know not just that your website exists, but the webpages where your services and products are described. Every webpage on a site potentially defines a different marketing goal because the product(s) or service(s) on the page have different competitors, customers, and goals for the business.

Sudden Silence continues

The dearth of commentary on the new copyright laws continues in Australia.
For nearly a year, Kim Weatherall was filling her blog posts with important commentary on the subject, along with a number of other blogs and news outlets around the country, but suddenly - silence.
YouTube continues to be under fire, - It may be directed indirectly at Google since they own YouTube. - with a diminishing number of comments from any media. Considering the potential for public harm and expense from the Cooper decision, it is hard to believe that nothing has happened in over a month. I mean, this stuff even had Australians working and reading until late December. Even the Attorney-General wanted to go home in mid-November, but stuck around to deal with the crisis.
And now: nothing.

Just the Basics

When I conceived this blog a few weeks ago, it was intended to illustrate the special circumstances of search engine marketing and search engine optimization in Australia. I picked up a few books on SEM and waded through them, bookmarking handy sites and lists of sites, all along comparing them with the clients and their marketing goals.
It wasn't long before I had lists on lists all over Australia.

I planned to do a few test projects to get me started. Each site could be representative of small business in Australia.

Because Australia has taken to the Net so quickly, and with the advent of real broadband speeds, this project looked to be fun - a case study in globalization that might track well as other small countries move onto the Net.
I felt kinda lucky to have found them, since each plan appeared to apply to thousands of businesses.
The real surprise after doing the research across the country to prepare for these projects was the restrictions of the new copyright law in Australia, but nuff said about that for now.

Links to your site

One of the more interesting reactions to the new copyright laws in Australia is on links and law, titled "How to stop links to your site".
There is a whole page on how to avoid being "framed", as if that were a real concern. What their on about is best demonstrated by choosing a link from any article on About.com. The page will appear under a wide About.com banner. About.com uses invasive Javascript to inject the code for their banner into the new page if it won't open in the frame.
It's not hard to overcome such programming. Just right-click anywhere in the new page and choose 'Open in new window' (or 'Open in new frame' if you're using Firefox.)

There is code that can be inserted into a web document to prevent being "framed"; and code that can prevent injected Javascript.

Thing is, this is the Internet. The whole idea of the Net is to get links to your site, blog, or page.

Not being "framed" has little or nothing to do with the dangers of the new copyright law, whether you have links to offending material or not. Your code may prevent someone from using a link to your page, but that doesn't mean they won't be able to copy the link and use it in a new browser window.
All the code does is force your page into a new window.

If the idea is to protect yourself from being visible to Australians, you've failed.
There is better technology for that on every server. Just set the server exclusions to Australian IP addresses. Not only will your site not be "framed" and exposed to Australia's restrictive laws, but it will not appear at all. You just redirect the user to a customized error page to explain.

Some servers will allow you to do this on a page by page basis, leaving parts of your site available while any offensive material is blocked. If the server doesn't have this facility (or you don't have access to it), there are Python and Perl scripts that can be employed.
This sort of scripting can be used on blogs, too.
Savvy webmasters will redirect the visitor to a customized error page for a few seconds, then back to the main page for the site. There's no sense in losing a visitor.

Sudden Deafening Silence

It's as if a silent hand reached out across Australia. You can even mark the date: December 20th.
From all the sources listed on the right under "Australian Copyright Law", there was an intense debate examining the new law, then suddenly - silence.
As if someone said, "Enough", then, "Stop dissecting and criticizing Australian law. Write about the rest of the world." The Word was spoken, and The Word was heard.
The last comments from Kim Weatherall and LawFont were on 20 December. The Sydney Morning Herald is focusing on YouTube. The last critique on Boing Boing was 25 December. TechDirt's last article was 18 December.
The ITWire from 12 December quotes Attorney-General Philip Ruddock's amorphous reassurances:

"Everyday consumers shouldn't be treated like copyright pirates. Copyright pirates shouldn't be treated like everyday consumers," Ruddock said. "In fact, anyone who uses iPods, DVDs, CDs or records television programs will benefit from the changes."

"Tonight countless Australians will no longer be breaking the law," he said, even though the new law doesn't come into effect for two weeks.

On the 18th of December, the Cooper judgment was handed down by the High Court making Mr Ruddock's reassurances sound hollow.
Why the sudden silence? If there was some official or semi-official word that went out, why aren't Australian experts writing about it? If there was no word, then why the silence?
Or is this just the infamous aussie holiday break?

Australian Copyright Law - Images

Nearly every website, blog, or webpage on free hosting has a few images or links that could be construed under the new Australian Copyright Law to be infringements. Small businesses frequently use images from Google to provide information about their services or products. Technically, most of these images are Intellectual Property.

A picture of a product can be construed as theft, or it may also be seen as a source of free advertising - not just in a conventional marketing sense, but also - if the web designer links to the product description on the manufacturer's site - a means to increase the visibility and page rank of the product, and manufacturer.
This would be an example of a "deep link" and an "external link" - a link that points to a page other than the homepage without a reciprocating link from the indicated site. Search engines give special consideration to such links.
Even if there is no link, the image is still free advertising; like someone passing out pictures of your product for free.

Professional Ethics
Often, a client approaches a web designer with a list of links to sites that they like, or chooses a template from the designer's portfolio of templates.
A professional web designer will discuss with the client the costs of obtaining licenses to use the images, but too often will accept whatever images a client presents as licensed. If there is some question about the ownership of images the client wants on the site, the designer will discuss the risks and ask the client to be aware of them.
Most professional web designers, large and small companies, have purchased licenses for libraries of images. They use these images to construct the templates.
The licensing of images can get a little complicated though.
There are very few good images available for free and in the public domain.

Well, here it comes

Here it comes
For a nation that is pushing people onto the Internet faster and faster with new programs being funded all around, there had to be a plan to recoup the generosity. New taxes in Canberra (ACT) will increase the costs for providers that will be passed on to consumers. It's not hard to see this is a pilot program that can easily be copied by other states and territories.
Still the biggest money maker looks to be fines and legal fees generated by the new Copyright Law.

Cooper was investigated secretly for over 2 years at the expense of MIPI and its deep-pockets clients. Then the court case took 18 months. As a penalty, Cooper and Comcen were ordered to pay MIPI's costs. Those costs haven't been determined yet, but they must have been significant.
Even the High Court didn't feel it fines were necessary as punishment. At $6600.00 a link, the fines would have never been paid.

From a few conversations, it's obvious to ordinary Australians that courts and laws are made in Australia to generate revenues for the government and fees for lawyers has not escaped the general public. The general public has no idea what to do about it though.
Any conversation along these lines brings out a couple of terms from Australians they truly despise: "hillbilly" and "banana republic".

Whole websites are being torn down. Some rebuilt with great care. From my continuing informal survey, many will just leave the site blank.
Companies wishing to have a web presence will have to factor in the costs of copyrighted images and new taxes, even before the website has a chance to prove it can pay for itself. It won't be long before all states and territories enact taxes following the lead of the ACT, and probably adding a few more just to prove their independence.

Given the cost of access in Australia for second-rate broadband services and the absolutely low cost of providing it, Telstra should be able to quarantine profits from these services for its upgrade and maintenance strategies.- Michael Harris, Tapping, WA (from comments published on Australian IT News)

Australian Copyright Law - SEM in Oz

The ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) says there are 860,000 small businesses with Internet access, from a total of 2.3 million businesses with gross revenues less than $2 million AUD. Less than 10% of those small businesses have websites, and far fewer have monetized their websites.
At first glance, that would seem to be a tremendous opportunity for web designers and search engine marketing - the ground floor of a market.
The ABS figures seem to be based on registrations of Australian TLDs: '.com.au' and '.net.au'.
According to Webhosting Info, the registration of international TLDs - .com, .net, .org, .info, and .biz - is already declining dramatically.

Total Domains in Australia : 1,466,852

Rank	TLD	Total Domains	Market Share	Net Gain/Loss
1	COM	1,265,472	86.2713 %	(2,116)
2	NET	92,295	6.292 %	(111)
3	ORG	54,563	3.7197 %	(549)
4	INFO	35,171	2.3977 %	(249)
5	BIZ	19,310	1.3164 %	(357)

I have to admit that these figures coupled with the amendments to Copyright Law and the Cooper case, are disheartening. Considering the debate over amendments to Copyright Law in Australia has continued over the last year, it seems the new laws are already having damaging effects. Although the 59,914 domains in New Zealand is much smaller, at least the numbers are increasing.
It looks like I am just a little behind the times. The optimistic perspective that drove me to study and plan to add SEO-SEM to my skillset is better reflected by industry posts from 2004-2005. The Internet community is nothing if not responsive.
This is globalization in reverse for Australia.

Musings on the Australian Copyright Law

The more I read the last year's comments, submissions, and debate, the more I have to wonder how these people could possibly have written this law. No other country on the face of the Earth, other than possibly Communist China, has a more restrictive law on the books.
Australian legislators have put into force a law that makes Australia a regressive, restrictive society. There just isn't another way of putting it.

And further, how could a three judge panel from the Australia High Court take the law to an even more irrational and restrictive level before the ink is even dry?

I don't really expect to see an answer to these questions, much less the truth. It would be refreshing though.
Even more refreshing would be to see the law revoked immediately, and that panel of judges made redundant before they do more harm. That may be only slightly more likely than the truth, but it won't happen either.

Note: Until this analysis, the option appeared to be available for Australian webmasters and owners to buy a pair of TLDs - one in Australia and the other international - then using geo-location and redirects, to have exposure to both Australia and the rest of the world. Since the Cooper judgment extends the jurisdiction of Australian Copyright Law to an international TLD, that sort of adjustment won't be possible.
Indeed, nearly everything that might have been done programmatically to avoid prosecution by Australian website owners and ISPs appears to be useless.

What restrictive copyright laws may mean to small business in Australia pt 2

What restrictive copyright laws may mean to small business in Australia pt 2    

Let's look at the changes in Australian copyright law and recent rulings in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) and saerch engine marketing (SEM).

SEO
The major search engines have been the driving force behind web developers compliance with W3C recommendations.
Australian websites will not be under such pressure to comply with doctypes and coding conventions as the rest of the world. The pressure to move design for XML (XHTML) will be significantly less for Australian websites.
Programs such as Microsoft Frontpage, which really produces websites for only IE, may be more acceptable in Australia. Some browsers simply will not be able to interpret Australian websites in a reasonable fashion.
Perhaps the government will offer subsidies or grants from the monies collected in copyright fines to Australian companies who comply with the W3C standards.