The new reality of Google’s spam enforcement
A Google spam update targets manipulative content, links, and behaviors that violate Search Essentials. Learn how spam updates work, how to tell if you were hit, and how to recover.
Topic: Spamdexing
What are PBNs? Risks, rewards & SEO implications explained
PBNs promise fast links—but at what cost? Learn how private blog networks work, why they’re risky, and what to consider before using them in SEO strategy.
Survey: 92% of SEOs suspect their competitors buy links
Buying backlinks can seriously harm your SEO performance. Here's how to avoid penalties and losing traffic.
Ranking data during the December 2022 Google helpful content update and link spam update
The data providers sent us data looking at the Google Search results over the last couple of weeks.
Did Google admit it uses click data for search? Not really.; Friday’s daily brief
And, you’re no longer allowed more than one ClaimReview element per page.
On Google’s 21st birthday, a look back in time
Revisit a 1999 interview with Google co-founder Larry Page by Search Engine Land's Chris Sherman.
Report: 51% of web site hacks related to SEO spam
One of the biggest reasons a site gets hacked is for SEO purposes.
Moz upgrades controversial ‘domain authority’ metric
The company says it has made a lot of improvements, but SEOs still struggle with this hot-button metric.
New, unconfirmed Google ranking update ‘Fred’ shakes the SEO world
The webmaster and SEO community, along with the automated Google tracking tools, all show strong signs that there was a Google algorithm ranking update.
Google Penguin doesn’t penalize for bad links – or does it?
You technically no longer need to use the disavow file to help fix your Google Penguin issues - here is why.
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.
Google’s Latest Official Stance On Links Within Widgets
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 […]
Matt Cutts Implies Google Is Aware Of SEOs Bribing Bloggers
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 […]
Google Squashes Backlinks.com, Another Link Network Outed By Google’s Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, announced on Twitter that Google has gone after another link network, this one is named Backlinks.com. Like with Anglo Rank, the link network Google outed the week prior, Matt Cutts took a line from their marketing material and then said “Au contraire!” This is the way Matt Cutts […]
Google’s Matt Cutts: Link Spamming Google For A Specific Time Period? Then Mass Disavow Those Links.
In a recent video released by Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, Matt answered the question, “How can a site recover from a period of spamming links?” The example given was when Interflora was penalized by Google for buying links and only was penalized for 11 days. The question was, how can a site […]
Google May Have Penalized Another Major Link Network: Ghost Rank 2.0
Google has significantly penalized another underground link network over the weekend and we believe that one of the link networks targeted by Google is named Ghost Rank 2.0. A few weeks ago, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, tweeted “Thinking of ghost-related puns for a spam network. “They try to look super natural, but […]
Infected Search Results Jump 80% During Holiday Season
Chris Larsen from Blue Coat Security shared new statistics on the number of poisoned search results during the holiday shopping season. The new stats show an 80% jump in the number of clicks on infected search results from their last report in August. Specifically, they tracked 13,616 different clicks over 10 days, which is an […]
Google Explains New Link Warnings, Says Don’t Panic But Don’t Ignore
Confused by the latest link warnings that Google has been sending out? As we covered before, it’s all been pretty confusing. That’s why Google has posted more information meant to calm some worries, though it’s still likely that even after this, some are going to panic. The “Old” Link Warnings: Entire Site Impacted Google’s post […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 27, 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: Old AdSense Interface To Be Retired in November Google has worked the most-requested features from its older interface into its new one, including creating scheduled reports and viewing channels on the […]
Google’s Sending Webmaster Notifications About Bad Links Pointing At Their Sites
In January 2011, Google began sending out more webmaster tool spam notifications including notifications that your site has been penalized because of selling links. Now there are reports that Google is notifying webmasters that they have bad links pointing to their web site, as opposed to bad links on their web site pointing outwards. Here […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 21, 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: Google Simplifies Site-Specific Bidding on Display Network Google is eliminating managed placement default bids in an effort to simplify bidding on its Display Network. Now Display Network advertisers who use managed […]
Why SEO Needs Its Own Reputation Management
A few weeks ago, I saw a reference to search engine optimization (SEO) on the TV Show The Good Wife that made me fall off of my chair. (See SEO Gets Dissed by CBS TV Series “The Good Wife” for the transcript.) I fell off of my chair for two reasons: (1) I certainly did […]
Google Adding New Spam Warnings In Webmaster Tools
Google is sending new warnings to webmasters when it suspects the sites may have spam-related problems that need to be addressed. Over at Search Engine Roundtable, Barry Schwartz points to two new warnings that users have discovered in their Webmaster Tools accounts: a “notice of detected unnatural links” and a separate warning about cloaking. That […]
Dear Fox News: SEO Is Not Search Engine Scamming (Unless You’re Scamming Yourself)
In the same month that Rupert Murdoch has said he’ll charge for all his news sites because “quality journalism is not cheap,” I find it ironic to read the rubbish about search engine optimization that Murdoch-owned Fox News “reported” this week. SEO equals scamming, we’re told. If I have to pay for this type of […]
What Is Search Engine Spam? The Video Edition
Search engines tell marketers not to spam them. Many search marketers also advise newcomers not to spam. Spamming issues get debated online. But what is search engine spam? What’s it look like? How’s it smell? And why do search engines (not to mention users) hate it? At our recent SMX East search marketing conference, representatives […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 20, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 30, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 28, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 27, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Black-Hat SEOs Are Worthless, Shady Criminals
Black hat, white hat, blue hat, new hat… why should anyone care which color hat any search engine optimization (SEO) professional labels him- or herself? This was a question presented to me by one of my colleagues, Bill Slawski at SEO by the Sea, at the last search engine conference. I have been thinking long […]
Google Webmaster Tools Adds Paid Link Reporting Form & More
The Google Webmaster Central blog announced the addition of a few new features to Webmaster Central Tools. The main feature is a new form where you can report paid links that you find on various sites. This feature was discussed at the Search Marketing Expo conference and provides a more formal way of reporting paid […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 26, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web: