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Summary of Search, February 2013

November 26, 2018 by jadmin

Some SEOs speculated a Panda update was in the works a couple of weeks ago, but none has been confirmed by Google. It’s actually been a pretty calm month in the world of Organic SEO. What does Google want these days?! Overall trends and our collaboration with other SEOs reveal four important trends: 1. Google wants content published by Brands Keyword rich domains have lost much value in the last year. Google is giving preference to brands. They expect constant publishing and distribution of content. 2. Google plus is gaining in importance Will the Google plus economy replace the link economy? It’s too soon to say. But with the increasing importance of Google plus, it is becoming more vital to have profiles built out and maintained. 3. Negative SEO is alive and well One of our Black Hat SEOs on the panel has a thriving business doing “Negative SEO” for clients. Instead of building up his client’s authority with links, he’s creating as many horrible links as possible to competitors. The process is phenomenally easy, and the results mean a scary new chapter for SEO. Building sufficient authority with good links is the only possible defense. 4. Links from authority sites are more important than ever Getting links from important sites, whether in the niche or just more important overall, is a sign of confidence affecting rankings now more than ever. Moving Forward To reiterate last month’s emphasis on the New Google, and add on a 4th item: 1. Google continues to reward branding, social signals, and links from authority websites. 2. Even larger brands have to pay ever more attention to their technical SEO. No longer can duplicate content or thin content be overlooked. 3. Google expects sites that engage users: Videos, images, animations, and other forms of engaging media are important in the new Google. And content needs to match keyword targets wherever possible. 4. The more that media can be spread and leveraged, the better. New SEO Approaches: If you have a content creation initiative (or can get one started), our Content Marketing Link Building is the best way to go. If not, see our Business Development SEO Cycle. 1. “Content Marketing” Link Building involves gaining links for clients based upon their excellent content. 2. “Business Development Link Building” gains links through regular business development activities: providing sponsorships, getting listed on resource pages/”hub pages” in a vertical, and being involved in related conversations in forums and blogs.

Summary of Search, January 2013

November 26, 2018 by jadmin

Summary of Search, January 2013 It’s almost been 2 years since the first Google Panda update, and it looks like there is a new update about every 4 weeks now. Update 24 was released on Jan 22nd, impacting 1.2% of English queries. Branding and Content Other updates have included a “brand signal update” on the 17th. Some felt this update more than the Panda update 5 days later! Image search Google rolled out changes to their image search interface, touting these changes as better for webmasters. The consensus among webmasters has been that visitors from image search are down, and that’s not a good thing. Google hasn’t been forthcoming in how this was to help – were they trying to help reduce server bandwidth?! At any rate, Google is not likely to change image search interface back. Moving Forward Businesses expect perhaps less marketing over time, that there will be efficiencies and even possibly a “maintenance mode” for online marketing. With the new Google, nothing could be further from the truth: 1. Google continues to reward branding expertise, social signals, and authority linking. 2. Even larger brands have to pay ever more attention to their technical SEO. No longer can duplicate content or thin content be overlooked. 3. Google expects sites that engage users: Videos, images, animations, and other forms of engaging media are important in the new Google. New SEO Approaches: If you have a content creation initiative (or can get one started), our Content Marketing Link Building is the best way to go. If not, see our Business Development SEO Cycle. 1. “Content Marketing” Link Building cycle: KW Research Help with analysis. Content Creation Integrate/tag with keywords, as well as connect you with copywriters. Content Publishing Make sure content being posted is being indexed by search engines. Content Sharing & Distribution Get content indexed, and create links to the content to build authority. Share and distribute to maximize link authority. Campaign measurement Provide analysis, always optimizing the approach. 2.”Business Development” SEO cycle: KW Research Send possible link ideas every month, based on your keyword targets and industry. Business Development Link Building Provide possible sponsorships, “hub pages” in your vertical, and related conversations in forums and blogs. Link Contact Information Provide the best contact/submission info, which can be as hard to find as the link! Link Outreach Strategies Suggest approach, based on our experience in link outreach. For companies, link outreach is best done in-house – but let us know if you need us to do the outreach instead. Campaign measurement Our end-of-month reports will help measure and optimize the approach for each next month.

Summary of Search December 2012

November 26, 2018 by jadmin

In 2011, Google said they wouldn’t make large changes around the Holidays. This year, all bets are off. Google released Panda update 23 on December 21, impacting 1.3% of English queries. Another change Google made on December 13 attracted quite a bit of attention. Google could not confirm there was an update, but the most logical assessment might be seomoz’s idea that it was a “PMD update” affecting domains that partially used their targeted keywords. Last month, we summarized 3 kinds of content that Google Panda updates penalize: Scraped content, thin content that isn’t unique, other forms of duplicate content. Befriending Google Panda 1. Improve the site’s text content Remove all lower quality content. Invest in good copywriting, written for prospects instead of search engines. Copy should connect with the right audience, solving problems and informing them. Keywords should be used naturally, prominently, but not according to any specific density formulas. If you need help finding a copywriter, let us know: We recommend Laurie Macomber at Blue Skies Marketing. 2. Fix the site. Broken links, grammatical errors, misspellings, and other aspects of the site must be fixed. 3. Enhance the “richness” of the site. Use internal links to communicate keyword relevance. Videos, images, animations and other forms of media can also communicate relevance. Google’s Penguin update SERoundtable recently conducted a Penguin Recovery Poll: 94% Of Google Penguin Victims Did Not Fully Recover http://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-poll-16162.html 81% said they had no recovery while 13% claim a partial recovery and only 6% claim a full recovery. That is based on over 500 responses to our poll. Disavowing links 1. Disavowing links may be seen as a confession. Consider carefully before using the tool. 2. If your site only has spammy links, do not disavow them: You will have no links. Bing snapshot is much like Google’s knowledge graph. Google’s weakness appears to be freshness of data, but only time will tell which service has the most accurate up-to-date answers at the top of SERPs.

October 2012: The only constant in Organic Search is change

November 26, 2018 by jadmin

October 2012 was another busy month for Google. The search giant started the month by announcing 65 changes they made during August and September. Google also pushed out a new Penguin Update (v3) on October 5 – these Penguin updates penalize the overuse of keywords both on a website, and through links. We have had a few clients with really bad – and sometimes profane links. They may consider Google’s new disavow links tool, just released. But we recommend caution with the tool right now: Some SEOs are speculating Google may see this as a confession! Information also came out early in the month about Google penalizing domains that were more “keyword rich” than authoritative. This Google update (called EMD, or Exact Match Domain) is hitting domains like cheap-flights-from-denver.com. They would have been favored in the past for searches like “cheap flights from denver”, but no longer. Authoritative sites were not hit though: ski.com still ranks #1 for “ski”. Google also had an update to it’s penalty for “Top Heavy” sites – those with too many ads at the tops of the page. Highlights of Google’s 65 recent changes include: 1. Changes to titles and snippets. Google is ever more treating the robots.txt directives, title and meta description tags as “suggestions” from webmasters. Sometimes this can be helpful – such as when titles have “comments on” or other generic phrases. Other times, Google’s choices may directly conflict with choices the webmaster has made. 2. Google is using more like terms, and expanding their autocomplete suggestions. A search for “telecom provider” returns results where the term “carrier” is bolded as well as “provider”. Google is sure getting smarter, and it’s a good time to diversify keywords! The Google webmaster guidelines were also updated this month, and reflect their move away from counting low quality directory as well as low quality bookmarking sites. There wasn’t much news for Bing this last month, but a recent report from antivirus vendor Sophos found that Bing search results contained more than twice as many malware-infected pages as Google’s search results(which is still at a hefty 30%).

The month in Search

November 26, 2018 by jadmin

There haven’t been any Penguin updates this last month, but Google Panda 3.9.1 happened on August 20, 2012. We didn’t see any impact to most client rankings. Penguin v1.2 update is still expected to happen any day now, and (Google Spokesperson) Matt Cutts says to expect a bumpy ride. The early revisions of Panda were wild and somewhat “wooly”. Is page 1 top 7 now?! Around mid-month, Google started showing only 7 results, and from fewer sites, for a good chunk of queries(Estimated: 18%). Page 1 now means “top 7” for many searches. The percentage of users clicking through from positions 8-10 has been negligible in most studies, but this is a major change in how results are displayed and another clear departure from the 10 blue links of yesteryear. Change is the rule Rankings are more volatile than ever. One SEO shared: “Something like 80% of the Top 10 SERPs we measure change every night, to some degree.” On August 10, Google posted 86 changes they made in June and July. Many were small, but those of interest to us involve the boosting of “trusted sites” (usually means large brands) as well as changes to sitelinks. The new clustering and boosting of trusted sites is often creating monopolies for larger brands. Google used to only show 2-3 links maximum from the same website. Now it is possible for larger brands to dominate the top 7 or 8 results. “Transition Rank” Patent Application Google has a new patent application regarding “transition rank.” It’s aimed at punishing Black Hat SEO techniques through random ranking changes: “Some of the techniques used by rank-modifying spammers include keyword stuffing, invisible text, tiny text, page redirects, META tags stuffing, and link-based manipulation.” Many SEOs are speculating this has been part of the algorithm for some time.

Changes last month in the world of Organic Search

November 26, 2018 by jadmin

There weren’t any Penguin updates this last month either, but Google Panda 3.9 happened on July 24, 2012. We didn’t see any impact to client rankings. But Google Panda updates should be a constant reminder: Have you added to your site lately? Have you added something of real value to your visitors, something that will interest them, and something they will “Like” (or plus one!) Penguin v1.2 update is expected to happen any day now. With Google Penguin, websites are more vulnerable to competitors practicing “Negative SEO” than ever before. Since Google Penguin Update actually penalizes websites for links that may have not been created by them, or for them, it is a change for the SEO industry. Some SEO companies are offering “link pruning” services, but it is quite time consuming. Webmasters on these bad websites are bordering on extortion: Asking for compensation to remove links. Bing, for it’s part, has created a tool to disavow bad links. Google claims to be working on a similar feature in Google Webmaster Tools, but no news yet on when it will be ready. Some expect the tool’s release to coincide wih the next Penguin update. Google sent out 20,000 “unnatural link” warnings last month, but then created some confusion by telling webmasters to ignore them. Google’s Matt Cutts explains: “Fundamentally, it means we’re distrusting some links to your site. We often take this action when we see a site that is mostly good but might be might have some spammy or artificial links pointing to it.” The link building techniques he identified are: 1. “widgetbait” This is where sites distribute a badge or other graphic with a link back to their website. Some web stats sites send these out, and Google has noticed. 2. “paid links” Google wants to be the only site selling links, I think. Or maybe they just want to make sure that advertising related links do not help rankings. 3. “blog spam” Blog entries and comments that are spammy detract from the web. 4. “guestbook spam” Guestbook / forum postings that have nothing to do with the conversation are certainly annoying, and Google does not want to encourage them with it’s algorithm. 5. “excessive article directory submissions” We do not submit to article sites. Many SEO firms have been submitted “spun” articles that resemble gibberish. Google does not see this as a good thing for the web, and also is seeking diversity of link types. 6. “excessive link exchanges” Google knows webmasters are likely to exchange links where it makes sense, but do not want to see this on a mass scale. 7. “other types of linkspam” There are always going to be new types of linkspam. Every time there is a new type of website! Google+ Google is also rewarding sites using their Google+ social network. If you haven’t created a profile and/or switched over your Google Local/Maps profile, this is a good time to get it rolling. Need help? Let us know: We’ll steer you to the right partner or help you ourselves.

July 2012 Changes in the World of Search Marketing

November 24, 2018 by jadmin

There weren’t any Penguin updates this month, but a couple of Panda updates to “refresh”. Google makes these updates and claims 1% of queries are affected. It sounds small, but is actually billions of queries. Google has in the past used a team of Quality Raters to examine certain search engine results pages, and has expanded that concept to regular web users. There are recent sightings of Google popups asking about the quality of the results. This could be tied into Google+, and could become a powerful social search feature over time. Google Penguin is perhaps a greater threat than Google Panda lately, and a Google Penguin Update v1.2 is likely coming soon. While Google Panda targets thin and low value content, Google Penguin targeted content and links that have been over-optimized. Google Penguin seems to penalize: Over optimization, where keywords are used too much on a page or site. “Spammy links”, like comments on blogs/forums that don’t seem relevant. Anchortext of links that is too homogenous. Links from spam/malware/bad neighborhood sites Footer links In order to Penguin-proof future Google rankings, we are recommending diversifying links in these areas: Diversity in anchor text Branded anchor text Diversity in the kinds of links acquired. Balance low and high PageRank links. Mix in some image links and nofollow links too. Google just last week said they do not look at how many nofollow links a site though. We have seen nofollow links as well as 302 redirects showing up in webmaster tools lately. So there may be changes in the works as to how Google deals with these. Since Google Penguin Update actually penalizes websites for links that may have not been created by them, for them, or for their best interests – the “Negative SEO” industry is getting quite a boost. Some SEO companies are also offering “link pruning” services, where they take the time consuming task of contacting websites to ask them to STOP linking – with varying results. Bing, for it’s part, has created a tool to disavow bad links. Google is said to be working on a similar feature in Google Webmaster Tools.

Notes on the Yahoo / Bing Transition

November 24, 2018 by jadmin

Yahoo advertisers received an email outlining a few more terms regarding the upcoming transition to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform. Some quick points: 1. A Tab will show up in “YSM later this month”, so be sure to login and look around. 2. Yours ads can server in adCenter right away when you transition. 3. Silverlight will continue being used. I still need to test and see what functionality might be missing when I login from my iPhone or an older mac. I hope whatever missing features degrade well! 4. The upcoming changes to organic search are later this month. We anticipate a rocky ride, as Microsoft will likely need to make ongoing tweaks. Dear Advertiser, As your transition to the Microsoft Advertising adCenter platform approaches, we have more details to share to help you prepare for the changes to come. Considerations for your upcoming transition adCenter account Soon, you’ll need to either create a new adCenter account, or link an existing adCenter account to your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Later this month, you’ll see an “adCenter” tab within your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Clicking there will take you to the beginning of the account transition process, where we’ll walk you through the simple steps to create or link accounts. Budgeting Once you create your adCenter account, it will be active and your ads will be eligible to serve on Bing right away. As a result, you’ll be managing both your new adCenter account and your existing Yahoo! Search Marketing account in parallel until ad serving for Yahoo! traffic transitions to adCenter, so plan to budget accordingly. Microsoft Silverlight With Silverlight installed, you’ll be able to see and address key differences between your Yahoo! and adCenter accounts as you transition. Download Silverlight now. Organic search transition Yahoo! organic search results will be powered by Bing as early as late August. If organic search results are an important source of referrals to your website, you’ll want to make sure that you’re prepared for this change. For more details, check out this blog post. As we’ve stated previously, our primary goal is to provide a quality transition experience for advertisers in the U.S. and Canada in 2010, while protecting the holiday season. However, please remember that as we continue to go through our series of checkpoints, if we conclude that it would improve the overall experience, we may choose to defer the transition to 2011. We are committed to making this transition as seamless and beneficial for you as possible. We appreciate your business, and look forward to bringing you the benefits of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance. Sincerely, Your Partners in the Search Alliance, Yahoo! and Microsoft

4 reasons to 301 redirect old subpages ASAP

November 24, 2018 by jadmin

After a major website redesign, it’s not uncommon for page locations and even page extensions to change. Maybe you’ve switched web development languages, or changed your website’s structure into a SEO friendly themed set of silos. Whatever the reason page locations have changed, it’s vital that the old page locations are 301 redirected to the appropriate new pages. It’s time sensitive for the developers to make the change, as: 1. Pages will start dropping out of the index (Google hates sending visitors to bad pages, and can see the bounce rate skyrocket). When Googlebot comes to visit your site, it will probably receive a “404 Error Page” as well as a 404 HTTP error code. A 404 error code is the surefire way to get a page out of Google’s index. 2. Humans that have bookmarked the old page will be stranded. Depending on the 404 error page (Your server’s default is simply awful), your loyal return visitor may think the entire site is down. 3. Search engines will stop counting the power of the links coming into broken pages, and rankings will drop. Search engines do not count links to missing pages. The wonderfully diverse link profile you’ve built over the years can disappear as links to subpages are no longer counted. 4. Webmasters linking into subpages might notice the 404 and remove their links. Some webmasters routinely monitor where they are linking to, and remove links to broken destinations. Don’t make the most common of 301 redirect errors: Sending everything to the home page. to preserve a diverse link profile, you’ll want to keep those links spread naturally across your site’s homepage AND subpages. Happy 301 redirecting!