One of the highlights from the SMX West show a week ago was the session named “The Search Police: Matt & Duane’s Excellent Search Engine Adventure.” The panel featured Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester as Bill & Ted with Danny Sullivan playing Rufus. Matt (Bill) and Duane (Ted) both give presentations and then […]
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 Panda Update 25 Seems To Have Hit There are many webmasters and SEOs believing right now that Google has released an update to their Panda algorithm late yesterday. We’ve reached […]
There are many webmasters and SEOs believing right now that Google has released an update to their Panda algorithm late yesterday. We’ve reached out to Google to confirm or deny the Panda update, as we’ve done 24 times previously; but this time, Google told us they are unlikely to confirm future Panda updates since Panda […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 Matt Cutts On Upcoming Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced new updates with Google’s Penguin and Panda algorithms and new link network […]
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 […]
How often does Google take “manual action” against websites for spam, where a human being reviews a site and decides it deserves some type of penalty? For the first time, Google’s released a chart showing this, going back nearly 10 years. The chart is part of Google’s new “How Search Works” area, and it stretches […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: How To Stop The Panic Before Asking “Have I Been Panda Slapped?” You may see a drop in rankings or traffic and immediately panic. Have I been Panda-slapped? Even now, as […]
We just came upon the two year anniversary of what came to be known as the Google Panda Update. Between then and now, a seismic shift has seemingly taken place in the link building and SEO industry. Many of you reading this know the gory details, but if you don’t, I recommend reading Vanessa Fox’s […]
(Editor’s Note: This is the final article in a 3-part series looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first two articles in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery and Google Panda Two Years Later: […]
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 Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility (Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda […]
(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 […]
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011.) Two years ago today, Google sent shockwaves through not only the SEO industry, but also through online publishing in general when it launched the Panda algorithm update. It was originally […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: No, Google Hasn’t Released Unannounced Penguin UpdatesThe last time Google has confirmed a refresh or update to the Penguin algorithm was back in October 2012 with the 3rd Penguin update. The […]
Is Google pushing Penguin Updates without announcing them? A recent Google video might give that suggestion, but the Google tells us this is not the case. Confusion Over Penguin Refreshes The last time Google has confirmed a refresh or update to the Penguin anti-spam filter was back in October 2012, with Penguin Update 3. That was […]
Q&A is a great idea that really hasn’t worked. Although Yahoo Answers and a few others are still around — and Ask returned to Q&A as a way to differentiate from Google and general search — the segment is littered with dead bodies, including Facebook’s Q&A offering. The outlook for Quora in its current form […]
Many enterprise websites, particularly those associated with good brands, obtain lots of links to their home page without any focused link building effort. In some sense, you could say that they get these links “for free.” Since this is the case, do these sites really need to have a dedicated link building effort in place? […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: New Tumblr Blog Raises Privacy Concerns Over Facebook Graph Search That didn’t take long, did it? Tom Scott, one of the current users of Facebook Graph Search, has started a Tumblr […]
Google has announced a new Panda refresh, making this version number 24. This refresh has a noticeable impact 1.2% of English based queries according to Google. The previous confirmed update was #23 and it impacted 1.3% of English queries on December 21, 2012. Prior to that was a refresh on November 21 that impacted 0.8% […]
Link building certainly was a hot topic in 2012 – maybe it’s because Penguins are so gosh darn cute that we just can’t help ourselves, right? Outside of the penalties dished out by cute black and white animals and search engine algorithms alike, our team of veteran link builders kept doling out solid advice for […]
The Enterprise SEO column made its debut on Search Engine Land midway through 2011, as large companies and big brands were faced with new challenges and massive opportunities in the search world. In 2012, we saw mega-sized content sites lose visibility in search results due to Panda, while the Penguin updates squashed those who gambled […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Official: It’s Google Panda Update 23, Impacting ~1.3% Of Queries Google has confirmed rumors of a Google update announcing on Twitter that they pushed out a Panda data refresh today impacting […]
Google has confirmed rumors of a Google update announcing on Twitter that they pushed out a Panda data refresh today impacting about 1.3% of English queries. This would make for the 23rd Panda update since the first Panda algorithm was introduced on February 24, 2011. Since then we had 22 updates both to the algorithm […]
Last Thursday, there were many webmasters and SEOs who felt Google had a major algorithm or index update. The update was thought to be the size of a major algorithm update such as when Google pushed out Panda, Penguin or any of those other major updates. A Google spokesperson told us there was no update […]
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 In Privacy Flap With Germans Over New iOS Maps According to a report in Computerworld, Google has violated German data protection and privacy rules with its new Google Maps app […]
The end of the year in any industry marks a good opportunity to look back on the year and reflect on changes. This is particularly true in the SEO industry, given the volume and intensity of changes that have occurred in 2012 — from algorithmic changes to how SEO is perceived in the organization 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: AdSense Text Ads Get Biggest Makeover In Recent Memory In a nod to consistency across platforms and the growth in mobile usage, Google has overhauled its AdSense text ads to be […]
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 Adds Medications To Its Knowledge Graph Searchers in need of medical information will begin seeing detailed information on medications as part of Google’s Knowledge Graph product. In today’s announcement, Google […]
Google has confirmed that they ran a refresh to the Google Panda algorithm on Wednesday, November 21st. On November 20th, we asked Google about a Panda refresh – since we were fairly confident there was some sort of update. Google told us there was no update but an update would be coming within 7 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: No, That Wasn’t A Panda Update — But One Is Coming We’ve been hearing reports from within the SEO community that a significant Google update happened starting this past Friday throughout […]
We’ve been hearing reports from within the SEO community that a significant Google update happened starting this past Friday throughout the weekend. Google tells us there was no Panda update over the weekend but is not confirming or denying if there was another type of update over the weekend. Google did however tell us they […]
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 Fined $208,000 In Australian Defamation Case, May Appeal Google has been told to pay the equivalent of $208,000 (USD) after recently losing a defamation case in Australia involving how 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: Who Should Win The 2012 Social Media Election? With today being Election Day, I figured it would be appropriate to write a post related to politics. Then I thought better of […]
Did you feel it yesterday? Some did, a slight shaking in the Google results. Yes, it was real. Google’s confirmed to us that a Panda Update happened yesterday. Google said that worldwide, the update will impact about 0.4% of queries that a regular user might notice. For those searching in the United States in English, […]
Wondering if some human at Google has reviewed your web site and decided it deserves to be penalized in Google’s search results? Google’s now reporting such cases nearly 100% of the time. “We’ve actually started to send messages for pretty much every manual action that we do that will directly impact the ranking of your site,” […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: How To Develop Helpful Content To Improve Visibility & Conversion In this article, we’ll look at another website that was submitted for review from a “Keywords and Content” point of view. […]
Another week, another update to part of Google’s search algorithm. This time, Google announced a refresh of its Page Layout filter that it first announced back in January, or what’s often called the “Top Heavy” update. Updates, Updates It’s the fourth Google update in the past two weeks. The rundown so far: Panda Update 20: Sept. 27, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Now Handpicks News Writers For Its Social Sidebar Bing is dipping its toes into a form of what Google calls “authorship” with today’s announcement that news writers are now being […]
Last week, Google announced the EMD Update, a new filter that tries to ensure that low-quality sites don’t rise high in Google’s search results simply because they have search terms in their domain names. Similar to other filters like Panda, Google says EMD will be updated on a periodic basis. Those hit by it may […]