Google’s head of webspam, Matt Cutts, caused an uproar in the SEO community yesterday when he published a blog post on his personal blog claiming guest blogging for SEO purposes is dead. In his post, Cutts offered a history of how guest blogging has moved from being a reliable source of high-quality content to now […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Will Link Building Soon Be A Thing Of The Past? The other day while working on a client proposal, I came to the section about link building and had to pause. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Matt Cutts: “Stick A Fork In It, Guest Blogging Is Done” Google and Matt Cutts, in particular, has made a number of statements about guest blogging over the past year as […]
Google — and Matt Cutts, in particular — has made a number of statements about guest blogging over the past year as the tactic has grown as a link building tactic. None of those statements are as clear as the one Cutts wrote today on his personal blog. Cutts, the head of Google’s webspam team, […]
The major travel website, Expedia, seems to have lost 25% of their search visibility in Google according to Search Metrics. It appears that drop was due to an unnatural link penalty, where Nenad called out Expedia over a month ago for possible paid links on article sites. Expedia.com’s Google Traffic Decline: Patrick Altoft noticed a […]
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 Alerts Get A Shiny New Redesign Google flipped the switch this morning on a new design for its Google Alerts emails. The change brings Google Alerts closer in line with […]
Earlier this week, Danny Sullivan reported on the hijacking of thousands of local hotel listings within Google+ Local. Those listings had been replaced by third-party hotel booking services. And while it’s unclear how long those third-party links were in place, several knowledgeable people have surmised it may have been at least a month, if not longer. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Covario: Global PPC Click-Through Rates Hit New Highs, Spend Up 17 Percent YoY In Q4 Though the numbers vary, the Q4 reports we’ve covered all point to solid year-over-year increases in […]
Microsoft Bing’s Senior Product Manager, Duane Forrester, wrote last night at the Bing Webmaster Blog that it is only a myth that in today’s ranking algorithms that a keyword rich domain name will make enough of an impact on your rankings to give you a major boost above your competitors. Duane said that maybe “10 […]
Rand Fishkin, the cofounder of Moz, formerly known as SEOmoz, is stepping down from his role as the CEO of the company today. Rand announced the news on his personal blog about a month ago. He said it was because he felt he was “out of his depth, and poorly suited, especially from an emotional […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: EU Wants More Search Concessions, Google Defies French Authority Round and round she goes. The European Commission is seeking a final round of “concessions” from Google in an 11th hour effort […]
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, posted a video answering another webmaster question. The question was, “Are results in different positions ranked by different algorithms?” The answer is no, Google does not have reserve web search results slots or positions for ranking for specific algorithms. For example, slots 3-5 in the results are not […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yelp Turns Up The Heat: 285 Consumer Alerts Issued Over Fake Reviews It’s been almost a year and a half since Yelp began issuing Consumer Alerts when a business on its […]
Thousands of hotels listed within Google+ Local appear to have had links leading to their official sites “hijacked” and replaced with ones leading to third-party booking services. Google+ Local listings are what Google depends on to provide results in Google Maps or Google Search, when people look for local businesses. A Hijacked URL For example, […]
Now, when you go to Google Image search, you will see an extra option under the search tools for “usage rights.” Searching and filtering images by “usage rights” is not a new feature for Google Image Search. The feature has been around since 2009; but, Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Ryanair CEO Claims Airline Is Working With Google On A Flight Search & Comparison Tool In an interview published by Irish Independent, Irish airlines Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary claims his airline […]
Bing now appears to be supporting secure search through the https://www.bing.com address. Previously, trying to use this address generated an error. If you conduct a search on Bing, while on the HTTPS URL, it will remain HTTPS and keep your searches secure. This is a new feature Bing quietly started supporting over the weekend. Cyrus Shepard […]
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Just five-months ago Google’s head of search spam strongly recommended to nofollow links in widgets because the widget space has been abused with link spam. That may have changed with a small but significant update to the Google Webmaster Guidelines link schemes page. Now, the page specifies the exact type of links that are not […]
In a video released by Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, Matt said publishers who publish similar or duplicative stories on different URLs may use the rel=canonical tag to help consolidate the PageRank of the stories and avoid any issues with Google. Matt Cutts did say that duplicate content won’t hurt you unless you […]
WordStream has released a revamp of its AdWords Performance Grader, the instant AdWords account auditing tool, now dubbed AdWords Grader Plus. WordStream says the free tool, launched in August 2011, has already been used to analyze accounts representing three billion dollars in total advertising spend. The company has refined the tool based on that wealth […]
John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, announced on the Google Webmaster Blog that they are no longer rounding the search query data within the Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report. John said, “data in the search queries feature will no longer be rounded / bucketed,” and you will start to notice these changes in Webmaster […]
Lyrics site Rap Genius says that it is no longer penalized within Google after taking action to correct “unnatural links” that it helped create. The site was hit with a penalty for 10 days, which meant people seeking it by name couldn’t find it. That’s been fixed, though it’s unclear how much traffic the 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: Infographic: The Biggest Changes To Google Search In 2013 What were some of the biggest changes to Google Search in 2013, in terms of how its search algorithms ranked and displayed […]
We close out our three-part series of Excel tips from Bing Ads Evangelist John Gagnon today with some advanced level tools that, in fact, even beginners can start using successfully today. While many of the tips we’ve covered can also help SEOs as well as PPC practitioners, today’s focus on keyword research is particularly relevant 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: 2014 SEO Playbook: Off-Page Factors Are you ready for 2014? Today’s column marks the third and final entry in my annual SEO Playbook. Part 1 primarily focused on what Hummingbird will […]
Before Christmas, Rap Genius was outed for link schemes and then on Christmas, Google penalized the site for those link schemes. The penalty is still on and a couple metrics sites show huge drops in traffic for the site, some as much as losing 90% of their traffic since the penalty. Marcus from Search Metrics […]
On Friday, Scott Adams’s Dilbert published another Dilbert comic strip related to Google on Google Engineers. This one pokes fun on a stereotype that Google engineers are arrogant. As you can see from the comic, it plays heavily on how great Google engineers think of themselves. The comic starts with the employer saying: I hired […]
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, […]
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 Understand And Optimize AdWords Search Partners Data Here at Hanapin, we have a monthly training day. We shut down the office and all the account managers spend the morning […]
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: AdWords Bid Management And Account Structure Mistakes To Avoid On my one-year anniversary of working as an AdWords practitioner instead of a Googler, Brad Geddes interviewed me about Quality Score for […]
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 […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Don’t miss out on learning from the pros. Attend an SMX West workshop! Sharpen your marketing skill set by attending one of six in-depth workshops offered on March 10. Choose from […]
Yesterday, John Marbach exposed the popular music side, Rap Genuis, for starting an “affiliate” program in order to get unnatural links pointing to their web site. After it was exposed, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, said, “we’re aware and looking into it.” Here is the Facebook post, which is still live, on their […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Use Google Keyword Research To Target The Long Tail In Local Search There’s something of a void where local business marketing is concerned. Local marketers understand they need to target keyword […]
There’s something of a void where local business marketing is concerned. Local marketers understand they need to target keyword queries in SEO and PPC campaigns, but they assume they know what people search for, and they miss out on valuable referrals because of it. Here’s a brief guide on local keyword research to close the […]
On Friday night, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts tweeted a link to a Gawker story named Shady Marketing Firms Are Still Quietly Bribing Bloggers. Matt said, “we’re taking action on hundreds of buyers, dozens of sites, & dozens of spammy writers,” in reference to that story. It is hard to say if Google […]
Alex Chitu noticed that Google is now showing the keywords Google did not match on for your long tail search. The example below shows how Google did not match on a specific keyword within the search phrase and noted that under the search results snippet. We have to suspect this is part of the Hummingbird […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: England’s Lulworth Cove Tops Bing’s List Of Most Popular 2013 Homepage Images Bing has released its ten most popular homepage images of the year, with England’s Lulworth Cove off of the […]