Mar 15, 2013 at 1:53pm ET by Barry Schwartz

What's that, a Panda Update you just felt? Some believe so. But Google says it is unlikely to confirm that or any future Panda Update, as it has done in the past, because of the new "gradual" rollout infrastructure it is using for Panda Update changes. Earlier this week at SMX West, Google's Matt Cutts said a new Panda Update might hit this week, then later said that the update — and future updates — would no longer be apparent as an abrupt change. Rather, Panda changes would roll out over a series of days. Because of this, Google now says it's unlikely it will confirm officially if [...]

AdWords “Ineffective” Says eBay, Google “Meta-Pause Analysis” Contradicts Those Findings

Mar 14, 2013 at 1:06pm ET by Greg Sterling

A story generating buzz and controversy earlier this week amounts to a stinging indictment of the paid search industry as a whole. It was based on new research from eBay that argues SEM is all but worthless and has little or no impact on traffic and sales -- except in marginal cases. However, Google studies argue SEM delivers clear and tangible benefits to advertisers and publishers. In a paper published last week eBay describes its study (.pdf) and related results. The company says it sought to determine the impact of pausing paid-search ads on its organic traffic and sales. eBay: SEM "In [...]

Need A Google Reader Alternative? Meet Newsblur

Mar 14, 2013 at 1:23am ET by Gary Price

With the shutdown of Google Reader having just been announced, the Web is full of discussion about where those of us who utilize RSS should turn next. I'm happy to report there's a solution I already use and love: Newsblur. I have been a user of the completely Web-based Newsblur since 2011 and have been nothing but impressed. It's easy to use, dependable, fast, and gets the job done. Plus, it has a ton of features for those who want them. I use several. Newsblur is the work of a sole developer based in Brooklyn named Sam Clay and has been online since 2010 with a growing but still s [...]

Google: Panda To Be Integrated Into The Search Algorithm (Panda Everflux)

Mar 13, 2013 at 6:25pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, announced at SMX West today that their Panda algorithm will soon be more integrated into their overall continuous algorithm updates. Meaning, the Panda refreshes that we have been tracking in detail will start to be less severe and noticeable to webmasters and SEOs. The Panda updates will be more real-time, as opposed to being manually pushed out. When will this happen? As early as this weekend with the next Panda refresh. Here is the audio clip from the show where Matt Cutts announced this. Here is a partial transcript: Rather than ha [...]

Google Launches Help Center For Hacked Sites

Mar 12, 2013 at 2:07pm ET by Vanessa Fox

Google has just launched a help center for hacked sites, complete with step-by-step instructions and videos that outline each part of the process. The videos feature Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google (and her Googler colleagues), who told me "we wanted to connect our capability to detect and alert site owners of their hacked sites with improved resources to help them recover." For some time, Google's been letting site owners know when their sites have been hacked, but this new help center takes the next step and walks through how to fix the site and get the warnings remove [...]

Google’s Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates

Mar 11, 2013 at 8:03pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced new updates with Google's Penguin and Panda algorithms and new link network targets in 2013. Matt announced this during the SMX West panel, The Search Police. Significant Penguin Update Matt said that there will be a large Penguin update in 2013 that he thinks will be one of the more talked about Google algorithm updates this year. Google's search quality team is working on a major update to the Penguin algorithm, which Cutts called very significant. The last Penguin update we have on record was Penguin 3 in October 2012. Before that, w [...]

“Better Than Google” Claims: Why Doesn’t Anyone Believe Them?

Mar 11, 2013 at 10:53am ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft continues to run online its Pepsi-Challenge style ads "Bing It On," in which a majority of users prefer Bing in a "blind comparison test" with Google. Despite the commercials and despite Microsoft reporting that after extensive testing users preferred Bing 2:1, people generally express skepticism. People simply don't buy the campaign. Another recent study conducted by Butler University found that Q&A engine ChaCha bested Google in terms of the quality of answers provided (across nearly 4,000 queries). And last week, YP released the results of an extensive study of local sea [...]

Google On Bing Attack Ads: “Others Should Focus On Building Good Products”

Mar 10, 2013 at 1:14pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google has largely ignored Bing's Scroogled campaign, the one attacking it over the pay-for-play change to Google Shoppping & Gmail privacy. But today, Google search chief Amit Singhal pushed back a bit, saying Bing perhaps should focus on making better products rather than attacking Google. Speaking at the SXSW conference, when taking a question posed via Twitter about how Google views Bing's attacks, Singhal responded to say "We focus on our users." Then he continued: "Others should focus on building good products, too" to audience applause. You can read more of his talk here: Li [...]

Bad Merchant? Google May Drop Your Rankings Later This Year

Mar 9, 2013 at 12:49pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Had a bad experience purchasing from an online merchant? Google says it wants to protect searchers from that, and it may crackdown later this year with changes intended to prevent bad merchants from ranking well. The news came during the "How to Rank Better in Google & Bing" session that I moderated yesterday at the SXSW conference in Austin. Google's chief Web spam fighter Matt Cutts responded to concerns one merchant had about bad competitors outranking him. Cutts said: "We have a potential launch later this year, maybe a little bit sooner, looking at the quality of merchants and [...]

Infographic: Google’s Mobile World, From Ads To Apps To Android

Mar 7, 2013 at 9:00am ET by Search Engine Land Infographics

Mention Google and mobile together, and Google's Android mobile operating system probably comes to mind. But Google's mobile world is much larger than Android. It includes everything from ads, to offers, to apps like Google Now and yes, even Google Glass. The folks at WordStream have put together an excellent infographic covering 20 different ways that Google has a mobile presence. Even if you might not agree with WordStream's assessment of how effective particular areas are, it's a great guide for navigating the mobile world of Google. Here's the infographic (you can click to enlarge i [...]

Web Spam Archive Tool Saves Google’s Live Spam For More Than Just Recent Results

Mar 5, 2013 at 2:23pm ET by Greg Finn

One of the more interesting aspects of Google's recently released "How Search Works" interactive infographic were the live examples of spam that were recently removed. The features allows users to see live spam that was recently removed (once they clicked through the disclaimer that offensive material may be included.) Just 4 days later our own RustyBrick (the company of our very own Barry Schwartz) has released a Web Spam Archive Replay tool that aggregates and saves the spam examples. Google appears to only provide 48 examples at a time, but this tool allows users to flip through m [...]

Interflora Is Back: What Did They Fix & How Did They Come Back So Fast?

Mar 5, 2013 at 12:50pm ET by Christoph C. Cemper

Interflora got penalized only 2 weeks ago, right after Valentine’s day with a huge coverage in the media and also a some-what indirect statement from Google’s Matt Cutts himself about Advertorials also counting as paid links if they pass Page Rank (i.e. do not have NOFOLLOW tags on them). Now, just this past Sunday, a week before Mother’s day in UK, they are already back for most of their rankings. Many wonder how that recovery was possible so quick and we’ll look at what was changed and what was cleaned up. More Than Advertorials As we could see in the Interflora Deep Dive Analy [...]

Interflora Gets Its Google Rankings Back, 11 Days After Penalty

Mar 3, 2013 at 7:23pm ET by Matt McGee

Interflora, the major UK flower delivery service, is showing up again in Google's search results -- just 11 days after it was penalized. According to some tweets and posts on Google+, Chris Gilchrist was first to spot Interflora's resurrection today. As you can see in the screenshot above, Interflora is ranking again on searches for its company name, and its Google+ brand box is appearing again on the right side of the search results. (As Dan Barker pointed out on Google+, that wasn't showing during the penalty.) Based on my Google.co.uk searches here in the US, Interflora is also ra [...]

Google Gutted Its Search Quality Rating Guidelines For Public Release

Mar 1, 2013 at 4:08pm ET by Matt McGee

As part of today's big "How Search Works" reveal, Google also took the big step of sharing its Search Quality Rating Guidelines for the first time. This is the document that Google's human search quality raters use when grading Google's search results. But the new, public document is actually an edited version of the old one that circulated quietly several times amongst webmasters and SEOs. In fact, "gutted" is more accurate than "edited" -- where the most recent non-public version of the document was 161 pages, the public document released today is only 43 pages. What's Changed The bi [...]

Google Releases Interactive Infographic: “How Search Works”

Mar 1, 2013 at 11:58am ET by Danny Sullivan

Ever wondered how Google Search works, finds pages from across the web and decides how to list them in response to a search? If so, Google's got a new resource designed to answer questions. Called "How Search Works," the new area announced today is an interactive infographic that explains more about the search process, including how Google deal with spam issues. The new area was inspired by Google's The Story Of Send, an interactive infographic that Google released last year to explain how it handles email. "We were looking at this site [The Story Of Send], Matt Cutts [Google's chief [...]

3 Major Tablet & Smartphone Search Opportunities For Multinational Websites

Feb 26, 2013 at 9:10am ET by Chris Liversidge

Looking back at 2012 statistics for smartphone usage & tablet sales figures paints a picture of significant multinational SEO opportunity in 2013. Here are three key SEO opportunities for 2013 and how to take advantage of them.

Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility

Feb 25, 2013 at 8:45am ET by Matt McGee

(Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first article in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery.) Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched two years ago, had an enormous impact on the SEO industry and online publishing as a whole. As with any Google algo change, there are winners and losers in its search results. In part one of this series, we looked at the current search visibility of some of P [...]

Will Google Penalize Chromebooks, Google Analytics, AdWords & Google+ For Using Advertorials?

Feb 23, 2013 at 8:18pm ET by Danny Sullivan

A day after warning publishers against advertorials, will Google's search team now have to penalize parts of its own company for running advertorials? Perhaps, and if so, it wouldn't be the first time. It's also another absurd chapter in Google's war on paid links. Google Says: Advertorials, Beware! After news came out yesterday that Google had apparently penalized Interflora for running advertorials -- and also reduced the PageRank values of many UK newspapers that carried these -- Google finally blogged a general warning against such practices. From its post: Please be wary if some [...]

Google Dishes Out PageRank Penalties To UK Newspaper Web Sites For Selling Links

Feb 22, 2013 at 12:23pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google has downgraded the Toolbar PageRank scores for several dozen UK operated newspapers and news sites today. It is believed the reason Google has downgraded their PageRank scores is because they were selling links on a massive scale. Google Penalizes Sites Selling Links As you may remember, in October 2007, Google went on record that selling links can hurt your PageRank and rankings in Google. Shortly later, Google went ahead dished out PageRank penalties to many US news sites including sites like the Washington Post, Forbes, Sun Times and dozens of others. This is nothing new. Goo [...]

Google Says No Comment On Why Interflora Was Penalized

Feb 22, 2013 at 8:52am ET by Barry Schwartz

The popular UK flower website Interflora seems to have been penalized in Google. They no longer rank for their key terms, such as [flowers], [flower delivery] and related terms -- nor do they rank for their own name [Interflora]. Here is a picture of the search results in Google UK for [Interflora]. As you can see, the number one ranking is not Interflora.co.uk; they are only coming up on the first page right now because they have paid for an AdWords listing. We asked Google to confirm if they have penalized Interflora for any reason, and Google would not comment. They said: We typi [...]

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