Google to bloggers: Disclose & nofollow links when reviewing gifted products
Google issues new best practices to bloggers who receive free products. Is Google about to send out a new manual action for paid links in exchange for product reviews?
Topic: Nofollow
RIP Google PageRank score: A retrospective on how it ruined the web
While Google will remove PageRank scores from public view in the coming weeks, the way those scores dramatically reshaped the web will remain.
SearchCap: Bing Solar System, Google AdWords Editor Update & AP Elections
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Latest AdWords Editor Update Supports Callout Extensions, Video Campaigns, HTML5 AdsMar 1, 2016 by Ginny Marvin The new version is now available. The Associated Press Partners With Google & Twitter To […]
SearchCap: Google AMP Errors, Nofollow Links & AdWords Health
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 Search Console Adds AMP Error Report Jan 20, 2016 by Barry Schwartz A new report was added to the Google Search Console under the Search Appearance tab for AMP errors. […]
Google Drops The Thumbtack Link Penalty Less Than A Week After It Was Issued
Google Capital backed Thumbtack's link penalty only lasted a week and now they are ranking just as well in Google. SEOs are calling this unfair.
SearchCap: Bing Images & Places, Yahoo Testing & Google Mobile Lite
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 Places Adds Several Agency-Friendly Local Business Listing Tools Agency dashboard offers local listing management, sharing with clients, features for chain businesses and more. Is Yahoo Testing Non-Bing Powered Search Results? […]
Naturally Generated Links? Hey, Google Might Still Hate Them!
Let’s say you have a manual penalty… not a nice way to open a post, I know, but it’s the reality for many site owners. What if Google shows you an example of one of your problematic links, and it’s one that sends you some really great converting traffic? What if, upon conducting a link […]
SearchCap: Google Polish Penalties, AdWords Disallows Porn & Matt Cutts Takes Leave
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Head Of Google’s Web Spam Team Matt Cutts Is Going On Leave Google’s Matt Cutts – who holds the title of “distinguished engineer” — is taking a break from his duties […]
SearchCap: Canada Orders Google Content Removals, Amazon Fire Phone & Bing Ads Landscape Estimator
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 Google Product Feed Specs Going Live Sept. 30, Including A Mobile Landing Page Attribute If you’re running Google Product Listing Ads, it’s time to revisit your feed. Google has updated […]
Will Google & Bing Penalize Microsoft Over Their Sponsored Post Campaign For Internet Explorer?
This morning, news broke that Microsoft Internet Explorer is getting help from SocialChorus to build more awareness for the aging browser by way of sponsored posts. Michael Arrington posted on his site an email from the company, soliciting him into this paid blog post campaign. The campaign instructs bloggers to write about their experience with […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 4, 2014
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 Testing New Search Results Design Bing is testing a new search results layout that changes the color of the logo from gray to the yellow/orange, changes the color of the […]
How A Single Guest Post May Have Gotten An Entire Site Penalized By Google
Google made it clear earlier this year that those doing guest posts “for SEO purposes” might be subject to penalties. But the latest chapter in its war on guest posts feels a bit crazy: an entire site put into Google’s penalty box because of a single guest post that Google didn’t like. Your Entire Site […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 19, 2014
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 Google Maps Comes Out Of Preview Today Roughly last May at Google’s “I/O” developer conference, the company introduced an updated version of its desktop Maps experience. Since that time, it […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 10, 2014
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 Updates Its Page Layout Algorithm To Go After Sites “Top Heavy” With Ads Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced that Google has released a refresh of its Page […]
How SEO Greed Can Ruin A Perfectly Good Linking Strategy
By now, you are likely aware of the Rap Genius “Tweet In Exchange For Anchor Text” link scheme, hencefore to be known as TieFating. Barry Schwartz reported last week on John Marbach’s exposé of the popular music site, Rap Genius, which had started an “affiliate” program in order to get links pointing to their website. After it was exposed, […]
Google Has Officially Penalized Rap Genius For Link Schemes
Google has penalized Rap Genius for link schemes this morning. If you go to Google and search for [rap genius], rapgenius.com will not be found on the first page. Instead you will find links to their Twitter account, Facebook page, Wikipedia profile and stories like this about them being penalized by Google. But you won’t […]
Infographic: What Is The Nofollow Tag; When & How To Use It
The nofollow tag is a way publishers can tell search engines not to count some of their links to other pages as “votes” in favor of that content. Why would publishers need to block such votes? Doing so can help them avoid problems with search engines believing they are selling influence or are somehow involved […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 30, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook Now Let’s You Search Your Posts & Status Updates In Graph Search Facebook announced the launch of searching your posts and status updates within graph search. Facebook said, “Today, Graph […]
Google’s Matt Cutts: NoFollow Attributes On Internal Links Don’t Hurt But Generally Don’t Do It
In a video, Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts published today an answer to the question, “Should I use rel=”nofollow” on internal links to a login page?” Matt Cutts basically said you shouldn’t, but said it won’t hurt you if you did. Matt said, “It doesn’t hurt if you want to put a nofollow […]
Google’s Matt Cutts: Nofollow Links Won’t Hurt You Unless You Are Spamming At A Huge Scale
In a video released today on the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts said: typically, links that are nofollowed can’t hurt your rankings in Google. That being said, while most cases are that links that have the nofollow attribute on them will not negatively impact your rankings in Google. […]
Google’s Matt Cutts: I Recommend NoFollowing Links On Widgets
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, posted a video answer this morning strongly recommending that those who place widgets on their sites, or those who distribute widgets, should place a nofollow on the links within the widget code. Matt Cutts said, “I would recommend putting a nofollow, especially on widgets.” The reason is because […]
Google: Links In Press Releases Should Use Nofollow Like Paid Links
Friday we broke the news that Google updated their link schemes webmaster guidelines. Now that the dust has settled, I aimed at getting more clarification on what Google meant by the new example around keyword-rich anchor text links within articles or press releases. The specific line in the link schemes document is: Links with optimized […]
Google Warns Against Large-Scale Guest Posting, Advertorials & “Optimized Anchor Text” In Press Releases
Google has quietly updated the link schemes document under their Webmaster guidelines to add large-scale guest posting, advertorials and optimized anchor text in articles or press releases to the list of types of links that violate their guidelines. The new guideline examples that were added to this document include: Large-scale article marketing or guest posting […]
Google: Guest Blogging For Links? You Better Nofollow Those Links
Marie Haynes spotted two video responses from Google where Google’s John Mueller, said in general, it is best you nofollow links in stories you write, especially when those stories are guest blog posts for the purpose of link building. In general, that is Google’s advice. If you link to something with the intent that it […]
Google Hits Mozilla With Spam Penalty Over User Generated Content
Have user generated content on your site? Pay attention to what those users are doing. That’s the takeaway from Google hitting Mozilla with a spam penalty this week, along with another takeaway. Despite Google’s saying it’s being more transparent about spam actions, people clearly find it hard to know what they’re in trouble for. Mozilla […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 5, 2013
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: If Search Results Were NCAA Championships, Then All Bets Would Be On Louisville The data analytics firm Chitika has created an infographic showing search volume for the final four teams in […]
Will Google Penalize Chromebooks, Google Analytics, AdWords & Google+ For Using Advertorials?
A day after warning publishers against advertorials, will Google’s search team now have to penalize parts of its own company for running advertorials? Perhaps, and if so, it wouldn’t be the first time. It’s also another absurd chapter in Google’s war on paid links. Google Says: Advertorials, Beware! After news came out yesterday that Google […]
Google Launches Disavow Links Tool
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 […]
Google’s Matt Cutts On Affiliate Links: We Handle Majority Of Them
The video about is from the SMX Advanced show in 2012 where Danny Sullivan asked Google’s Matt Cutts about nofollowing affiliate links. Matt responded that although they handle the majority of affiliate links automatically, if you are at all worried, you should nofollow those links to be careful. Here is what Matt said, if you […]
Google: Yes, Sponsored Post Campaign Was Ours But Not What We Signed-Up For
It’s been about a day since we covered Google’s sponsored post campaign to promote its Chrome browser, a campaign that produced posts that violate Google’s guidelines against “thin” content and potentially those against buying links. Yes, it was a Google campaign, but not what the company says it signed-up for. One agency is falling on its […]
SEO Smackdown: Information Architecture vs. Technical Architecture
Why do SEO professionals believe that technical architecture is more important than information architecture (IA)?
Google Realtime Search & The Aftermath Of The Google-Twitter Split
Last Friday, Twitter quietly shutdown its “firehose” of tweet data that was being piped to Google. Like a gas station no longer getting deliveries, Google in turn effectively had to hang a “Closed” sign on its Google Realtime Search service. What happened, and what’s next for those who depended on Google to get some of […]
Google’s Matt Cutts Riffs On J.C. Penney, Panda Update & Other SEO Topics In Live Webchat
Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed this morning that Google has lifted J.C. Penney’s SEO penalty, that the Panda update will continue to rollout internationally and offered numerous SEO- and search-related tips in a live webchat on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel. More than a thousand viewers tuned in but, for those who weren’t able to […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 4, 2011
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: Why Google’s Wrong In Its Accusations Along with everything else going on for Bing’s Harry Shum on Tuesday — a panel about search spam, dealing with Google’s accusations that Bing […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 3, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Did A Google Employee Just Register Hiybbprqag.com To Help Recruit New Employees? That’s a screenshot of Google’s “Jobs” page, which can be found at https://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/index.html. But it can also be reached […]
Taking A Closer Look At Link Changes
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 […]
What Social Signals Do Google & Bing Really Count?
Both Google and Bing have added many social search features over the past year. There’s also been talk about using “social signals” to help rank regular search results. But are either of the major search engines actually using those social signals to rank regular search results? A bit, they tell me. In particular, your stature […]
Forget Phones, Google Gives Top Advertisers Google TV
Google’s gained quite a reputation for surprising attendees at conferences with an “Oprah” moment of giving them free Android phones. But phones, that’s so last year. With Google TV about to launch, Google’s upped the giveaway ante — handing out Google TV units for attendees at its Google Zeitgeist conference. Zeitgeist is billed as Google’s […]
Connecting For Links: Recruiting Link Building Partners In-House
What is the hardest task in search engine optimization? Whether the question is asked in a formal poll, on an online forum or over a cup of coffee, the answer most commonly given is “link building.” With good reason: an external link, by definition, is something outside an SEOs immediate realm of control. External link […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 21, 2010
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 Beats Estimates With Very Strong Q4: $6.67 Billion Google posted a very strong Q4, given the recession, with $6.67 billion in revenues. This beats financial analyst general consensus estimates. Here […]