"We've detected that some of the links pointing to your site are using techniques outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines...." For enterprise SEOs, receipt of this notification is usually followed by a deep, sinking feeling in your chest. You check your keyword head-terms in the SERPs and realize that you can't find your website anywhere.  A lump forms in your throat as the realization sets in -- you've been penalized by Google. The Link Building Challenge Google's crackdown on unnatural links over the past few years has raised the question within SEO circles: "Is link building dead?" [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Week

Since Google rolled out the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, numerous sites have been impacted or penalized. Often, companies that incur penalties or experience a drop in rankings don't have a clue as to what they've done wrong -- especially small, local businesses. This leads me to a novel proposal: perhaps for local businesses, the best link building is absolutely none at all. I've been approached by many small-to-medium businesses seeking help with various degrees of penalization as a result of these updates over the past year, and some of the commonalities to me are striking -- pri [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Link Building | Local Search | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | SEO: Local

The Google Bomb is back! Searching for [miserable failure] in Google now returns George W. Bush's knowledge graph in the search results. The Google Bomb first became popular back in 2004 when Google and some other search engines ranked George W. Bush as the number one result for a search on [miserable failure]. In 2007, Google killed the Google bomb from showing up. But why did it rank in the first place? Google ranks pages based on anchor text of links, among other factors, and many sites bombed Google by linking to George Bush's webpage with the anchor text [miserable failure]. In [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search Marketing | Featured | Google: Knowledge Graph | Google: Web Search | Link Building: Link Bombs

With the growth of social networks and the ability to instantly tell the world how you're feeling, we've watched power shift from brands to consumers. No longer can companies simply rely on their marketing to do the talking -- they now have to rely on what their customers are saying. Why? According to American Express, the average person tells 15 people about their good experiences and 24 people about their bad experiences. More importantly, a recent report from Forrester showed 70% of consumers trust brand recommendations from friends; but, only 10% trust advertising. Yikes! The great t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

We've all been there -- that moment in any link building campaign where you hit a wall. There are so many things that you want to do, but there is so little time or buy-in to do them that you settle on just doing the things you need to do. That sucks. It gets tedious, and it will eventually wear you down by sucking all of the creativity out of link building -- which, let's face it, is the best part of link building. You end up doing one thing over and over again because it works. You stop iterating. You stop testing. You stop being creative. Plus, you lose sight of the big picture -- of [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

On May 15th, we reported that Google targeted yet another link selling network that resulted in several thousand penalties. Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, has revealed which link network was the target via Twitter last week. The target was one of the oldest, and arguably the most prominent, link selling brokers on the Internet, Text Link Ads. Matt said, "you might have noticed a big drop in PageRank on thousands of TLA linkselling sites a couple weeks ago." Matt added that this specifically targeted "capital TLA." The Text Link Ads web site currently has a PageRank of 6 but ac [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Link Building: Paid Links

Taking a broader look at Multinational SEO, though, throws up particular issues for the big brand sites out there, and I though that in light of the upcoming Penguin 2.0 update confirmed by Matt Cutts recently it would be useful to look at particular areas of concern for big site SEO and how to ensure you come out smiling when Google’s planned updates take effect.

Related Topics: All Things SEO | Channel: SEO | Google: Disavow Links Tool | Google: Penguin Update | Google: SEO | Link Building: General | Link Building: Paid Links | SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a new video today on YouTube clarifying Google's stance on Advertorials and "native advertising." Advertorials are editorial-like content that is published because an advertiser has paid the publication to publish the story or the content. Recently, we covered a story on how a major U.K. floral company was penalized for using advertorials as a way to boost their Google search rankings in an artificial way. Google's Cutts wanted to make it clear that it is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines for webmasters and advertisers to use advertori [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: Paid Links | Top News

In my last column, I discussed how to create linkbait by writing about other people. Shari Thurow made a comment that fits in perfectly with an idea I had about finding ways to expand existing content and better market the byproducts of your business: "Instead of linking to the link-bait article, I'll write my own POV (point of view) in the proper context and promote it elsewhere." Shari's idea was to respond further to interviews by writing more on her own site. This allows you to clarify any statements you made that were possibly taken out of context or misquoted, for example. But, I thin [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Building: Linkbait | Link Week

A unique combination of factors is having a profound effect on the "link graph" being created today, with many implications for those of us in the content publicity/link building field. [caption id="attachment_158973" align="alignright" width="300"] Mobile devices are impacting URL sharing[/caption] First and foremost among these factors is the "device effect." The device effect means that a huge number of us are now consuming our content on a mobile device that fits in our hands, such as a smartphone or tablet. A decade ago, if you wanted to go online, you generally had to do it on y [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Week

What a week it's been where Google and SEO are concerned. The company, via Matt Cutts, has issued several warnings about things to come -- and, late Tuesday night, also revealed that it's just acted against another link network. In a pair of tweets, Cutts -- the head of Google's webspam team -- said that Google has taken action against "several thousand" link sellers that were part of a link network that bought and sold links that pass PageRank. In addition to mattcutts.com/blog/what-to-e… it's safe to assume webspam will continue to tackle link networks that violate our guidelines as we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Google | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: Paid Links | Top News

There’s been a lot of talk in the search industry over the past year regarding the overlap of public relations and SEO, particularly in the area of link building. As a Public Relations major, this couldn't make me happier -- not because I feel like my college degree can finally be justified to my parents; but because, as an industry, we're finally embracing PR and learning from it, even though it’s always been a part of SEO. Public relations professionals have spent years perfecting their outreach strategies, building relationships and finding press opportunities for their clients. Sea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

About six months ago, Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, made a comment in a Google forum thread that links within press releases won't "benefit your rankings." Since then, we showed one case where Google not only discovers the links within typical press releases but uses the anchor text for ranking purposes. Maybe it was one fluke, or maybe that particular case was not fair? In fact, Matt has said this numerous times that press release links don't count. The other day, Daniel Tan released another press release, this time on a smaller release site and added the anchor text "l [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: General | Link Building: Paid Links | Top News

People usually love talking about themselves, and most people are naturally interested in the intricacies of others, whether it's business or personal. When you do an interview or put together a crowdsourced piece (and yes, I know many of you hate that term!) you're linking to the people involved. At first, this may seem counter-intuitive to earning links for yourself -- however, linking out to influential people while pumping out great content can be one of the best link building tactics out there, and here's why: Some people find it easier to promote themselves indirectly. By promo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | How To | How To: Links | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Building: Linkbait | Link Week

In a recent Matt Cutts video, where the head of Google's search spam team answered the question "Does linking my two sites together violate the quality guidelines?" The short answer is no; but, there is always a but. If you link hundreds of unrelated sites together, then it would violate Google's guidelines. Matt Cutts explained that if you had a few sites, related, part of your network of sites, you can link them together. That is, especially if they are related and useful to each other. But when you start linking thousands of sites together and they are unrelated, then that would be a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Link Building: General

After 2012 being dubbed the “Year of the Penguin,” Google’s Matt Cutts has already hinted that the next “Penguin 4” update will be bigger and more devastating than ever. We have seen big brands like Interflora get penalized and bounce back pretty fast. But how did that work? And what’s coming up for the rest of us? After the havoc wreaked by previous Penguin updates, how should webmasters prepare for what Google has in store next? [caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Matt Cutts has more in store for us webmasters....[/caption] Toxic Link Cleanup Phase Over the past [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Disavow Links Tool | Google: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

Technical University of Denmark researchers have designed a search engine that indexes specific sets of databases to help identify rare diseases. Users can query patient symptoms on FindZebra.com which crawls over 31,000 medical articles focused on rare and genetic diseases to deliver medically relevant search results. While the search engine's homepage includes a notification stating that the site is a research project and should only be used by medical professionals, the developers boast that it delivers significantly better results than Google when searching for rare disease content. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building: General | Search Engines: Academic Search Engines | Search Engines: Other Search Engines

[caption id="attachment_152995" align="alignright" width="267"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] For many years, email was one of just a few ways you could share a URL with another person. And, people were far less accepting of link request spam than they are today. So, for today’s column, let’s talk about the ancient concept of net etiquette and link building. In many ways, it’s come full circle and is as relevant today (if not more so) as ever. Net Etiquette & Link Building There was a thing called "netiquette" back in the day, a concept that today seems almost quaint. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week

A few years ago, I launched a website called FindHow, and we gave it a full-court press from a PR standpoint. In this series of articles, I’m running through all the best practices we leveraged. In the first part of Public Relations For SEO: The Complete Guide, we talked about how to convince journalists that your topic is newsworthy by properly “positioning” your product or service, and then delved into the basics of writing a press release. Part 2 continues with strategies for targeting journalists and tips for scheduling your announcement. Pick A Strategy To Target Journalists [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Case Studies | How To | How To: Links | Link Building | Link Building: General | SEO - Search Engine Optimization

This is the first of a three-part article about Public Relations for SEO. Let me start by saying that a press release written, issued and leveraged properly, can result in word-of-mouth, articles paraphrasing the release, and at a minimum, at least some backlinks. But, a press release alone will get much less exposure than one coupled with outreach to individual journalists and bloggers directly prior to issuing it. A few years ago, I launched a website called FindHow, and we gave it a full-court press from a PR standpoint. In this series of articles, I’ll run through all the best practi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Case Studies | Link Building | Link Building: General | Link Week | SEO - Search Engine Optimization