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 […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Report: PPC Tablet Spending Up 112%, Smartphones Up 113% The new IgnitionOne Digital Marketing Report for Q1 finds that overall paid search spend in the U.S. was flat for the quarter, […]
A few weeks ago, Google’s Matt Cutts posted in the Google forums that links from within press releases do not “benefit your rankings.” I covered this tidbit of news at the Search Engine Roundtable and it got a lot of feedback from the community. Today, the SEO Consult blog posted a test showing how links […]
In the first post of this series, we briefly explored Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) with Sr. Program Manager Vincent Wehren. In that article, we discovered that BWT is a well-rounded suite of SEO tools that have the added benefit of the massive amount of search engine data provided by Bing. We also learned from Vincent […]
Dan Petrovic documented a competitive link hack that can easily been done within Google Webmaster Tools to find all the links pointing to any page on the internet. It is a competitive link hack that seems to work just fine for anyone. The hack takes advantage of the intermediate link feature within webmaster tools. Without […]
Many SEOs cheered that Google’s new disavow links tool would make it easier to recover from a bad backlink profile. No more worrying about directories charging to remove links or trying to get out of bad link networks. But Google says it does want to see a good faith effort to go along with any disavow […]
It’s been almost two weeks since Google launched its link disavowal tool. Some have been busy diving in and using it, but others have had more detailed questions about it. We’ve got some answers, from the head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts. Question: How do people know what links they should remove? Answer: When […]
Google has launched a new and widely anticipated “disavow links” tool. The tool was announced by the head of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts, when speaking during a keynote at the Pubcon conference today. The tool is live and can be found here. It has been beta tested by some selected SEOs already for […]
Majestic SEO, one of the advanced SEO third party link reporting services, announced they are now updating their linkage data to be as fresh as within hours or minutes. Instead of waiting 24 hours for the link reports to update, Majestic SEO is pushing updates throughout the day, almost hourly, so webmasters can see new […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google: Further Penguin Update “Jolts” To Come; Panda Is Smoother & Monthly Fasten your seat belt, if you’ve been spamming Google. The anti-spam “Penguin Update” will have more jolts in the […]
For years, Google’s webmaster guidelines have noted that attempts to manipulate Google’s algorithms with artificial external link profiles (paid links, link schemes and the like) are violations and that Google may take action (by removing the site from the index or lowering its ranking). This year, Google starting alerting site owners with “unnatural links”, recommending […]
Google’s latest batch of search quality updates is online, and offers some insight into a variety of search- and SEO-related topics. Though some of Google’s monthly updates have included more than 50 items, this one comes in at 39. But it looks like there’s still plenty to digest. Here’s a look at what stands out […]
Today the Google Analytics team announced that we will start seeing backlink URLs in their newly released Social Reports. According to the announcement post, written by Ilya Grigorik, Software Engineering Manager, Google Analytics (and PostRank Founder): “These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to […]
The Dilbert cartoon above doesn’t speak well of the search engine optimization position. The cartoon ties people who do SEO as weasels and those that hire SEOs as an accomplice, someone who actively participates in the commission of a crime. It goes on to say the SEO will go ahead and “game the system” and […]
Increasingly over the years, search engines — Google in particular — have given more and more support to SEOs and publishers. But 2011 marked the first significant reversal that I can recall, with both linking and keyword data being withheld. Here’s what happened, why it matters and how publishers can push back if Google and Bing don’t […]
Third in our series are the link building tools from Raven Internet Marketing Tools. Raven Tools, founded in 2007, has a 20-person staff based in the country music capital of the world, Nashville, Tenn. Raven’s development team of eight is hard at work finalizing three new features set to launch between now and mid-November; vice […]
Second in our review series are the link building tools from SEOmoz Pro; I was excited to review this tool set since it’s not one I use. Let’s start with a quick overview of what’s in the program and then focus on the link building tools. SEOmoz PRO SEOmoz PRO is a set of “software, tools and resources to maximize […]
Beginning today, my Link Week column will be devoted to link building tool reviews. Each review will focus on how the tool works and provide tips on how you can use the results to build links. If you’re on the fence about buying a tool, hopefully my reviews will help with your decision making process. The […]
So you have finally made the decision to get off of the paid links crack and go straight. Do you go cold turkey? Do you take this in stages? There are great questions and the ones I will take on in today’s post. There are two major reasons why you should make this switch, one […]
Yahoo has announced they are shutting down one of the old and beloved SEO tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, later this year. This isn’t unexpected, and I am personally surprised it has been live for so long. That being said, the tool that launched on September 29, 2005 will be closing down “later this year” according […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Googleopoly: The Definitive Guide To Antitrust Investigations Against Google We’re another step closer to the US Federal Trade Commission launching an expected antitrust investigation of Google. If it does, the FTC […]
In Marchex’s field research and surveys with small businesses, SEO consistently surfaces as a growing priority for small businesses. When we asked small businesses how important SEO was for their business, 53% said “very important.” Further, considering the ongoing changes to search engine algorithms (e.g., Google’s recent “Panda Update”) and the big impact these changes […]
Almost every SEO I know spent the better part of last week discussing recent changes Google made to its ranking algorithm. This update hit some webmasters hard while others went unscathed, and results still seem to be settling out. Nothing I’m working on was impacted (knock wood) probably because I tend to use a wide […]
When you’re trying to build as natural a backlink profile as possible, you need to carefully think about all the things that could make it look strange. If your typical link growth each month over the past 12 months has been 5 links, getting 100 will seem odd. Suddenly focusing on an incredibly bizarre long-tailed […]
Bing Webmaster Tools has relaunched inbound link reports for verified site owners (as announced at SMX East back in October). I dove in to check out what the new reports include. Google has recently revamped their inbound link reports, so I made note of those changes well. Read on for more details. Want a quick summary? […]
The condition of standard SEO metrics search engines provide the web community (if the term “metric” can even be used here) is pretty deplorable right now. Back in February, I wrote: “…the convention of using indexed page counts and backlinks to benchmark and report on site performance is facing a similar demise [to ranking reports].” […]
Earlier this week, site owners noticed that substantial Yahoo Site Explorer link data seemed to be missing. A glitch? Gone for good? The first signs of integration into Bing webmaster tools? I talked to Yahoo and got at least some initial answers. Many site owners regularly use Site Explorer for information on external links to […]
The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced they have updated the link reports within Google Webmaster Tools. The new reports show you three things in general: The domains linking most to your site The pages on your site with the most links A sampling of the anchor text external sites are using when they link to […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Schmidt: ‘Next Great Stage’ Of Search Is Autonomous, Personal Speaking today at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt painted a vision of the future in […]
Look around for link building advice and one of the most common pieces is to re-engineer the backlink profile of your competitors. The reasoning behind this is that if they’re ranking well (meaning above you, of course), they must be doing what Google likes, so why not copy it and see yourself shoot up in […]
If you look at your link report in Google Webmaster Tools you may notice that Google is telling you have more links than you had the last time you looked. In fact, some are reporting they are seeing millions of additional links. At first, I thought that this may be some reporting bug. But today, […]
The team behind Link Diagnosis has announced a list of updates to their popular link analysis/SEO tool. Two of the updates, in particular, provide a fix for a pair of disappointing features that I wrote about last year when Link Diagnosis completed a major relaunch. First, the result sets have been expanded from 100 to […]
Increasing the external links to your website is one of the most important elements of a successful optimization strategy. They can boost your rankings in the search results, drive traffic, and increase your presence across the Web. But securing external links can be a challenge. That’s why it’s important to explore every opportunity to acquire […]
The Google Webmaster Central blog has a post on “dealing” with low quality backlinks. In that post, Google basically explains that incoming links is “just one of many” ranking factors. That being the case, Google says if you have bad quality incoming links, “don’t fret” it and focus on things you can control, like your […]
At SMX East today, Linkdex is introducing its new SearchDNA tool — a link analysis tool that the company says goes deeper than the already crowded field that it’s competing against. While some link tools only show up to 1,000 links (think Yahoo Site Explorer), Linkdex says SearchDNA has a database of about one trillion […]
Link Diagnosis, one of the most well-known link analysis tools around, has new owners, a new look, and some fairly substantial changes under the hood. But are all the changes an improvement? Well, after testing a beta version for a few days, and now using the new site that launched today, my answer is … […]
What should you do, as a polite and plucky link builder, if some of your inbound links just aren’t up to snuff? Do you risk alienating a well-meaning webmaster by pointing out that he’s linked to an old page that no longer exists? That he’s spelled your company’s name incorrectly, or, even worse, your URL? […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Curious Case Of Google’s Bizarre UK Search Results Results from all over the world have been appearing in Google.co.uk search results pages. Matt Cutts explained this was all good because […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Pitches Benefits, Ease Of Using Google Maps Google’s outreach last week was all about Street View. This week it appears to be Google Maps’ turn in the spotlight, thanks to […]
One of the most common recommendations people make about link building is to find out who links to your competitors (aka backlinking your competitors). This is a great idea, but many people who do this miss the most important point of why you do it. Let’s explore the good things you can do while backlinking, […]