Facebook allows you to embed fan pages on your own site, which might result in Facebook outranking you for your own brand name. For example, the Search Engine Land fan page has a link for me to “add a fan box to your site.” If you look at the code of that widget, you might […]
Though the housing market continues to plummet in the United States, “real estate” on the search results page is as competitive as ever as marketers try to nab as much as possible. But accomplishing this in foreign markets can be challenging. For example, even if you have a dot-com version of your website that ranks […]
Doing business on the Web isn’t easy, and you need every advantage to grab attention from the masses clicking by. In order to succeed, companies need to understand how to manage the marketing information they find. This information can be used to help strategic planning, monitor competitors and provide early warning signs for new opportunities […]
Most people in the industry look at contests and incentives as branding and marketing tools. However if you are willing to get creative, you can turn a contest into a powerful link building tool that will, over time, help your organic rankings. When most marketing and advertising teams look at a contest they are looking […]
From time-to-time, issues about how domain names can impact Google rankings come up. Is it true that if you buy a name, all the “link equity” that name has gained is lost? Below, a look at this and some related questions. Several years ago, Google sparked some concerns when it said that buying an established […]
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve come across some great link building discussions, techniques and Twitter tools I wanted to share here. I also wanted to mention a foundational linking tactic we’re using and seeing great results from. Let’s start with a valuable tip I found on one of the SEO forums . The value of outbound links The topic […]
With the economy the way it is, we’re getting a lot of inquires from people asking for package programs. They’re willing to cut back on the number of link building techniques they contract for, but not the quality of the links secured. Because of the volume of requests we were getting, I decided to look for a way to trim a couple […]
For all the great data that Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) offers, there are also some notable things missing. One that webmasters and search marketers have asked for is a way to track links over time. If you wanted a timeline of your inbound link counts from GWT, you had to chart them manually. Until now.
Google has been posting advice on links all this week. The two previous posts were on link architecture and external linking. Yesterday’s post was on the topic of inbound links.
This week at the Google Webmaster Central blog, Google has a series of blog posts all about links. The first two blog posts are live and are named: Links information straight from the source Importance of link architecture
Some client scenarios can be uncomfortable. Among them is when the client has worked especially hard to create a content area that they feel is linkworthy, and thus should attract links, but you, as the person who has to go get those links, aren’t quite as enthusiastic about the potential for success. The Scenario: A […]
Today, the Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Center is launching its first major update since its initial debut last fall. The Live Search Webmaster Center is Microsoft’s hub for their communication with site owners, and the tools portion of that center now has new crawl issues reports, backlinks data, and download functionality. The Webmaster Center was […]
Ask any link builder what link issues they’re consistently asked about and one of them will be linking tools. Link building is such a time consuming and detailed process that it’s only natural people look for tools and techniques to maximize their time. Those who spend a lot of time link building are familiar with […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
With certain linking strategies under fire and others frowned on by the search engines, I thought I’d focus on what links do count and share how and where I find them. The short answer to the question “what works” is: they all do. All the link building tactics we’re fond of jeering at still work; […]
Wiep Knol has surveyed 17 well-known and respected SEOs in the industry all about links. His survey asked questions exclusively about links and the value they had on search rankings. There were about 40 factors included in this survey. You can find the full survey results over here, but if you prefer to download a […]
We reported earlier about Yahoo Site Explorer not showing all link data. Yahoo has just posted an update for us on that topic. Yahoo says to “disregard any counts for inlinks reported by Site Explorer from October 11 through next week.” Yahoo is rolling out fixes for the tool over the weekend and throughout next […]
Over the past couple days and specifically yesterday and today, we have seen a large number of high quality blog posts in regards to link building, link buying, link exchanges and bad links. I thought I share with you some of those posts here:
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
A lot of business owners I work with understand they need inbound links but aren’t sure how to get started or prioritize their efforts. I suggest they begin by establishing a base of links from authority sites that work toward building their business reputations. I refer to these as foundational links and believe they are […]
It’s been a little over a week since MS Live Search disabled linking related advanced queries. The post itself announcing the decision was short, but the commentary that followed it was anything but. What’s the big deal? The search engines never had to give us this data in the first place. The actual operator, link: […]
Eytan Seidman of Live Search responded to the recent questions on why the Live.com link command went offline. He said it was primarily due to “mass automated usage for data mining.” So they have decided to block all queries with backlink operators for the time being. Eytan adds that they hope to bring this functionality […]
Last week Danny had a great write up on the new anchor text reporting feature Google added to its Webmaster Toolbox. According to Google, they’ve “enhanced the information we provide and will show you the complete phrases sites use to link to you, not just individual words. And we’ve expanded the number we show to 100”. […]
This morning I reported that both Yahoo and Google are updating the number of links they account for each site. Yahoo! Search Link Update shows a number of webmasters reporting both increases and decreases in the number of links Yahoo is reporting at their Site Explorer Tool. Google Link Update Within Webmaster Central’s Link Tool […]
For years, Google’s link: command (and see here) has deliberately failed to show all the links to a website. This came out of Google’s fear that site owners simply wanted the data to try and manipulate rankings — which was pretty true. Instead, they only provided a sampling of backlinks. Today, that changes. Google Webmaster […]
Kevin Gibbons spotted the “badge” link on Site Explorer that takes you to this page enabling anyone to place code on their site to show of the number of links they have to a specific page or to their site. As I commented earlier, badges that show off the number of links to a site […]
On Friday, Google Webmaster Central had a post about linking that I’m watching generate all types of new worries of what’s allowed or not allowed. I’ll do the freak out, then a summary of it, then try to push the reset button by revisiting my golden rules on linking.