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 […]
Ad network Chitika has released some data on mobile coupon search this afternoon. Based on an analysis of millions of mobile search impressions from its ad network, the company found that “Clothing and Restaurants make up the lion’s share of mobile coupon searches.” The study was conducted the first week of September. The two categories […]
Keyword classification is often the missing ingredient in SEO plans. Without understanding the reasons why people search, search engine optimizers will often misinterpret or improperly classify keyword phrases. How do we understand the "why" part of the optimization process?
Google’s admitted the possibility of “negative SEO” for years. But in the wake of the Penguin Update, some have claimed it’s now easier than ever. Does a new change by Google in its help pages acknowledge this? Google’s admitted the possibility of negative SEO since at least 2007. On its help page, it previously had […]
SEOmoz, the SEO toolset company, has announced they have successfully raised another $18 million in venture capital from Foundry Group and Ignition Partners. Foundry Group put in $15 million and Ignition Partners put in $3 million. Co-founder and CEO of SEOmoz, Rand Fishkin detailed the financials, growth, future plans and management changes of SEOmoz. One […]
Google announced they are removing three features from Google Webmaster Tools. Google made the announcement on the Google Webmaster Central blog saying the three features going away include the site performance report, the subscriber stats and the robots.txt creation tool. Google placed reversed the order of these features when they wrote about it, trying to […]
According to Reuters on Tuesday next week the already embattled new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson will lay out his vision for the company. The pressure will be on to deliver a coherent and convincing plan — emphasis on convincing. Following the announcement of 2,000 layoffs earlier this week Thompson sought to reassure Yahoo employees in […]
About a year ago, Google dropped traffic estimates from Google Maps driving directions and now they are back in the form of “current traffic conditions.” To see the traffic conditions, go to Google Maps and type directions from point A to point B. Google will show you the “current traffic conditions,” note these are not […]
SEOmoz has announced the SEOmoz Industry Survey is now open and ready for you to take. You can take the survey online over here. The last time SEOmoz ran this survey was two years ago, you can see the results of that survey over here. The survey has 54 questions and should take you about […]
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said on his Google+ page that using the new TLDs will not give you a ranking boost in Google. Matt Cutts said, “I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either.” […]
Demand Media posts $6.4-million loss in fourth quarter from the Los Angeles Times reports that Google’s Panda algorithm is mostly to blame for Demand Media’s $6.4 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2011. Demand Media released their earnings report last night, showing revenues up 15% year over year, but profits down from a positive […]
After China and the US, India is the third largest internet market in the world. But India has philosophically aligned itself more with China in pursuing a policy of censorship toward publication of content deemed “offensive” or “objectionable” by individuals, groups or the government. A recently enacted law seeks to remove all such content from […]
GMS Local, an initiative from GroupM focused on local search and local digital strategies, recently conducted a survey of national marketing executives (mostly in the retail sector) about their localization strategies and tactics. The survey was fielded in September and November 2011. What the agency found was considerable enthusiasm for local-digital marketing. Yet there was […]
For the past two weeks, I feel like I’ve been witnessing some type of Cuban Missile Crisis going on between Google, Twitter and Facebook. I’d like to suggest some ways that social-nuclear war might be averted. Beyond Blame, Believing In Cooperation Let’s set aside blame, because blame isn’t going to move anything forward. Let’s also […]
I woke up this morning to discover some fairly outrageous allegations against Google in Kenya. Local search/directory startup Mocality says that Google crawled its site for local business sales leads and then falsely claimed in cold calls to those businesses it had a partnership with the publisher to sign them up. Mocality founder Stefan Magdalinski […]
In a sound byte that might remind you of Baghdad Bob*, Iran’s police chief has announced that Google is a tool for spying. And not only that, but the Iranian government is also using that and other concerns to form a “national internet” under state control. Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam made his comments this week to […]
paidContent reports the lawsuit brought against Google in 2008 over quality of ads showing on parked or error message web pages has been thrown out by the court. On Thursday, January 5th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila turned down the class action suit brought against Google. He said he would not allow the suit because […]
Searches for “browser” no longer bring up the Google Chrome home page after Google applied a penalty against the page because of Google’s own sponsored post campaign. Google said even though it felt there were no “remaining violations” of its guidelines, the search engine’s spam fighting team was going to reduce the PageRank value of […]
Google, the company that has been fighting against paid links and “thin” content, seems to be behind a campaign that’s generating both on behalf of its Chrome browser. File this under “what were they thinking.” “This Post Sponsored By Google” Aaron Wall wrote about the campaign today at SEO Book, spotting how a search for “This […]
Six months ago, Google delisted all sites on a co.cc domain name. Today, they seem to have all returned. A search for [site:co.cc] currently returns 105,000,000 results. Google originally delisted the co.cc subdomains because Google saw a “very large fraction of sites” on that subdomain to be “spammy or low-quality” and felt it was warranted, […]
Wow, it seems like only yesterday we were all obsessed with the first (of what became many) Panda updates (which was initially called the Farmer Update) from Google and the New York Times story on JC Penney’s Holiday 2010 foray into buying paid links. Oh, yeah, good times. But 2012 is now staring us in […]
I’ve seen some weird Google results in my time, but this one is pretty strange. Search for “define an english person” or some related queries, and Google brings up the Wikipedia page about the C-word in response. As spotted by Search Engine Roundtable, people were asking in Google’s help forums why various searches related to […]
Saying that Google has a “special responsibility” to fight copyright infringement, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has issued a report card that scolds Google for not following through on promises to fight piracy. In a report card issued Monday, the RIAA takes a look back at four promises that Google made last year […]
Yesterday, I made an assumption that Google would put all Panda updates on hold until after the holiday season. Google tweeted yesterday afternoon that there would be “no major Panda updates until the new year.” The last Panda update we had was labeled a “minor” update on November 18th and since then, it has been […]
Annual US retail spending is roughly $4 trillion according to the US Commerce Department. And while e-commerce is growing very rapidly, it remains less than 5 percent of total retail sales. Historically, most search marketers have focused almost exclusively on e-commerce sales. But a new study finds that the real impact of paid search is […]
As expected Yahoo will be closing down Yahoo Site Explorer this year. Yahoo has just announced the date for the closure. This coming Monday, November 21, 2011, Site Explorer will cease to exist. The short Yahoo blog post reads: With the completion of algorithmic transition to Bing, Yahoo! Search has merged Site Explorer into Bing […]
As promised, Google has announced a way for WiFi router owners to stop Google from including them in the company’s location database. The opt-out requires a change in the name of the wireless network (the SSID) to include _nomap at the end of the name. In other words, if your wireless network is named “McGeehome,” […]
There wasn’t much change in U.S. search engine market share during October based on the latest numbers that comScore is reporting for the major/general search engines. The figures haven’t been posted on comScore’s website yet, but they have been distributed to industry analysts already. (Update: They’ve been posted now.) Here’s a look: Google: market share […]
Major brands and a variety of news sites — from established outlets to internet-only gossip sites — are among the winners from Google’s recent algorithm update that aimed to reward fresh and more recent content.
The US government sent Google 5,950 content removal requests in the first half of 2011, more than triple the number of requests that 2nd-place India sent in during the same period. The numbers come from Google’s latest semi-annual update to the Government Requests section of its Transparency Report. The Government Requests data represents government inquiries […]
According to stories that ran on Friday and Sunday in the Wall Street Journal, both Microsoft and Google are potentially going to bid for Yahoo. Various unnamed sources and “people speaking on condition of anonymity” told the WSJ that Microsoft is planning to act as source of financing for others in exchange for preferred stock […]
Google caused a major stir in the search marketing community today with the news that it will begin encrypting searches and outbound clicks by default in some situations. The move means that valuable keyword referral data will not be passed to analytics programs (including Google Analytics) when a logged-in Google user searches from Google.com. Although […]
We have been tipped off to a revised Google Quality Rating Guidelines handbook that has been leaked. It has been over three and a half years since we last saw a leaked Google Quality Raters Handbook and that document was from back in April 2007. Pot Pie Girl found a copy of the March 30, 2011 […]
If your website and/or web pages have low PageRank, it’s possible that they also suffer from poor spelling and grammar. Google’s top spam cop, Matt Cutts, made the correlation between low PageRank and poor spelling in a Google Webmaster Help video just made public today. In responding to a question about whether spelling and grammar […]
Now that it’s for sale, there are several reports indicating multiple buyers are interested in some or all of Yahoo. Among the names mentioned are Silver Lake Partners, a private equity firm, Yahoo search partner and former suitor Microsoft, News Corp. and Jack Ma of China’s Alibaba, in which Yahoo owns a multi-billion dollar stake. […]
TechCrunch reports Google is working with Inrix to power their real time traffic data for Google Maps. TechCrunch said, “Inrix went from contract to implementation in under 45 days. Initially available in 8 countries, Inrix’s real-time traffic information for all major motorways will be integrated with Google products and services online and on mobile phones.” […]
Google is, again, wiping the egg off of its company face this week after the New York Times exposed yet another way in which some users are manipulating Google Places to the detriment of unsuspecting small/local business owners. The latest issue involves unscrupulous individuals/companies marking other businesses as closed in Google Places. It’s a process […]
Call it “privacy 2.0.” Last year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously (and incorrectly) said that privacy is no longer a social norm. However one has only to witness the uproar this week over Facebook Messenger and the exposure of phone contacts to see that privacy isn’t dead. In Europe — Spain in particular — privacy […]
This past Christmas, the phrase “doing more with less” achieved new meaning as I watched my nephew gleefully resuscitate his stubby, short crayons with Crayola’s Crayon Maker into fresh, new, color-packed crayons. Kids with crayons to employees with goals, the “doing more with less” saying has certainly achieved epidemic proportions. No department has able to […]