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? […]
I’ve noticed something interesting on Twitter: the #followfriday craze has spawned loads of users saying “that’s great, but tell me WHY I should follow this person.” In the interest of cramming in those precious 140 characters, many people choose to just fill the space with people to follow, rather than explaining the reasoning behind saying […]
The Google News blog announced it is now easier to find other articles by authors. They have now hyperlinked the author’s name, when available, in the Google News search results. Here is a screen shot that shows it in action: I believe you have been able to search by author for a while now, but […]
A new video by Google’s Matt Cutts may give us some insights into how Google may treat links from different segments of sites, differently. In the video, Matt explains that Google doesn’t necessarily look to valuing a link from a blog more than a link from a forum. However, Matt does seem to imply that […]
URL shortening services are experiencing a renaissance in the age of Twitter. When every character counts, these services reduce long URLs to tiny forms. But which is the best to use, when so many are offered and new ones seem to appear each day? Below, issues to consider and a breakdown of popular services, including […]
Hey everyone, Happy New Year! I wanted to start the year off talking about one of the most important components of link popularity – anchor text. As far as I’m concerned, getting an anchor text link on an authority site ranks right up there with hitting the Powerball or finding out you’re having a baby. […]
Jeremiah Andrick from the Microsoft Live Search team has written a detailed blog post named Getting the right kind of links. In this blog post, Jeremiah explains the issues Microsoft sees with link exchanges and then gives tips on how to get “the right kind of links.” Those tips include to be the “subject matter […]
I was waiting for the day someone would bring an SEO tool to the iPhone. Today is that day, Infindigm released a tool named proSEO – iPhone SEO Content Analyzer. You can download the tool on iTunes or on your iPhone. To see the tool on iTunes, use this link. It does cost $14.99 but […]
Last week during SMX East, the Link Building Boot Camp was a 75-minute overview of everything you ever wanted to know about link building and then some. This session was offered to anyone who wanted to learn the basics, get a solid understanding of links and prepare for the rest of the linking panels throughout the week. […]
Ever since Google Webmaster Tools started reporting on broken links to a site, webmasters have been asking for the sources of those links. Today, Google has delivered. From Webmaster Tools you can now see the page that each broken link is coming from. This information should be of great help for webmasters in ensuring the […]
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
With automated tagging, Web links can surprise from the Associate Press reports that the Yahoo Shortcuts feature aided in placing inappropriate content on AP’s content. Yahoo Shortcuts is a feature that allows publishers to enhance their content by adding Yahoo content around the words in the articles or blog posts. In this case, there was […]
Linking is still de rigueur when optimizing for Google and all major engines. Linking strategies have run the gauntlet, from simple link exchange requests to buying links. For a good review of current best practices in linking tactics, I refer you to The Link Spiel by Debra Mastaler and “11 Experts on Link Development Speak […]
The Google Custom Search blog announced an interesting new feature that allows you to tell Google to customize the search results of your Google CSE based on who you link to within your site. Google will look at who you link to, then use that information to add content that your custom search engine searches […]
Yahoo Experiments With Non-Yahoo Links On Home Page from Techcrunch reports that Yahoo is testing linking to non-Yahoo properties directly from their home page. Typically, the only non-Yahoo links from their home page are the advertisements. On May 24th, Yahoo linked to this Crunchgear article directly in the “Featured” news box at the top middle […]
PageRank. If you do SEO or are involved with Google or search, you’ll come across this topic at some point. You’ll also likely be confused by what exactly PageRank means. To solve that, here’s a guide to PageRank, designed for searchers and site owners alike. Google’s Definition: PageRank As Votes Let’s start with what Google says. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web:
Back in 2005, SEOmoz tried to assemble a list of all the possible search engine ranking factors out there and get various experts to rate them. I say tried to because while they had a list, and ratings, no one knows all the factors or exactly how each individual search engine chooses to use them. […]
I’ve been publishing online about search for nearly 11 years now. My work, or my comments, have been quoted in mainstream publications on the topic of search for virtually the same time. Much more often than not, those references never include a live link back to my web site, not from the websites of those […]
The Microsoft Live.com link command operator is currently offline and has been offline since yesterday morning. Kevin Gibbons reported yesterday that a link:https://www.msn.com returns a blank page. I
Hurray! Finally, you can get a report from Google of the top anchor text phrases used when people link to your site. Google Webmaster Central has just announced the new feature. But didn’t Google already report anchor text data? Yes, but only keywords, not phrases. Keywords are mostly useless junk food data. Phrases are datalicious, tasty and […]
I love that people can comment at Search Engine Land directly within stories. I not only want comments — I want people to contribute links as well. I thought it would be useful to talk more about this, plus get feedback from readers on how we can improve the commenting system going forward.
Australian court rules against MP3 link site from News.com covers how an Australian court has decided that linking to some content can be illegal, in the right circumstances. In the right circumstances! That part is important. It’s easy to read the headline and come away thinking that search engines (or anyone, potentially) are going to […]