For an in-depth overview of Google’s new +1 extension of social search, see Danny Sullivan’s Meet +1: Google’s Answer To The Facebook Like Button. In addition, Matt McGee has written How To Get Google +1 Buttons For Your Website for publishers interested in adding the new button. Danny’s article briefly discusses how +1 will be […]
Five years ago, I wrote a story called “25 Things I Hate About Google.” It went viral, to my surprise. I thought it was worth revisiting that story on its five year anniversary, to see how many of those “hates” have been fixed. So let’s dive in!
An amazing amount of great information came out of SMX West this week. Below is a summary of some of what I found to be the most actionable and useful. Google’s Own Words About the Farmer/Panda Update Google’s Matt Cutts said that while the change isn’t 100% perfect, searcher feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. He […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Building Empathy For Googlebot With one persona, copywriters and designers will gain a better understanding of Googlebot and do a better job of creating a site that will appeal to him. […]
Pierre Far from Google wrote a blog post on how to design mobile friendly websites while considering Google’s webmaster guidelines and best practices. I’ve pulled out the key points from this post in bullet format: Google differentiates between traditional mobile phones and smartphones. Google has two bots: Googlebot and Googlebot-Mobile. Googlebot crawls desktop-browser type of […]
Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google’s results, then uses that information to improve Bing’s own search listings. Bing doesn’t deny this. As a result of the apparent monitoring, Bing’s relevancy is potentially improving (or getting […]
Bing has received a good deal of coverage for its integration of Facebook Likes into search results. In its Bing Search Summit last week, Microsoft said that Likes will influence ranking and create more personalized search results over time. As Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said, it’s “search quality foundationally influenced by the social graph.” Despite its […]
At the Bing Search event in San Francisco today, Microsoft unveiled a dizzying array of nearly across-the-board updates and improvements for Bing online and mobile apps. Some are minor and some are more significant. Most of these upgrades and feature enhancements will be available starting today or later this month. There are in fact so […]
Clickability, or perceived visual affordance, is a key element of search-engine friendly website design. How do searchers and search engines perceive clickable and unclickable elements?
It seems not a week goes by without news of a new investigation into Google’s Street View service, or into Google’s collection of personal data via unencrypted WiFi networks that occurred over three years as Street View vehicles drove the world’s streets. It seems like one country opens an investigation just as another country ends […]
As a site owner, you generally want Google to index as many pages of your site as possible. But there are certainly times when you find that you’ve accidentally let Google index confidential content or other information you don’t want published, and you want to get it removed as quickly as possible. Read on for […]
The new search engine Blekko just launched, and it’s making SEO-related data that it has found during its crawling and indexing of the web available for all sites. Just what does it include and how useful is it? Accessing SEO Data You can access SEO data for any domain or URL by clicking the SEO […]
On the heels of a formal privacy complaint by former FTC employee Chris Soghoian targeting Google’s embedding of search queries in page URLs, a new class action lawsuit takes aim at the same thing. It seeks monetary damages and an injunction against Google’s alleged sharing of searches with third parties. Google Said To Share User […]
Google has announced they have increased their privacy controls within Google to better secure user privacy. Google has done this in response to them collecting data over wifi via their street view cars. Google has added three broad changes to help secure private data going forward: (1) They appointed a director of privacy, Alma Whitten […]
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 Q3: $7.29 Billion, Display And Mobile Showing “Momentum” Google said it earned $7.29 billion in Q3 2010, an increase of 23% compared to the same period in 2009. Quarterly growth […]
Chris Hamlin emailed me screen shots of Google testing a new layout for the Google Sitelinks, the little links under a search result that provide quicker navigation to important pages within the site. Here are some screen shots sent by Chris, showing bolded links, with URLs, followed by normal sitelinks. Single one line sitelinks, and […]
At SMX East earlier this week, Maile Ohye of Google showed new parameter handling features in Google Webmaster Tools. Today, those features are available to everyone. Google first introduced parameter handling about a year ago. When I wrote about the launch, I described how optional parameters in URLs could cause canonicalization problems and gave a […]
As I reported days ago, over the weekend the popular, but virtually useless, add URL form on Google did not work. Google posted a known issue on Saturday, October 2nd. Today, October 6th, I am finally hearing reports that the add URL form is now working again. Google’s message that the add URL form was […]
Just what the world needs, another URL shortener, right? Google seems to think so, and it’s now making its own Goo.gl service widely available to anyone — complete with tracking and statistics — for free. Below, more about the new entry, how it compares to the more established Bit.ly plus a look at Twitter’s “wrapping” […]
Google’s holding a highly anticipated “can’t miss” press event today. The news? Perhaps the new results-as-you-type your search feature that started showing today. Perhaps something else. We’ll know at 9:30am Pacific Time today, when the event gets underway. Stay tuned for live blogging. UPDATE: For more, see our article, Google Instant: The Complete User’s Guide. […]
This is the year in which we will see video grow from a “frill” some businesses occasionally include on their websites, to an essential, competitive differentiator that drives SEO and increases brand identification. Knowledgeable companies have already embraced this shift and made video a central part of their online offerings. The most advanced have found […]
Today, Microsoft launched a revamp of their Bing Webmaster Tools. I talked to them back in June, when they previewed the tools at SMX Advanced, and they told me that they were starting from scratch and rebuilding the tool from the ground up. So how are things different? They say they are focused on three key […]
Throughout this column, the phrase “Quality Score” has popped up on different occasions. Understanding Quality Score is fundamental for successful paid search campaigns, but can be a difficult concept for beginners to understand. So the time has come to cover this topic so you can use Quality Score to your advantage and not fall into […]
It’s Day 2 of Google I/O, Google’s annual developers conference. The morning keynote gets underway at 8:30AM Pacific. What to expect? How about Google TV? An Android Tablet? TechCrunch found evidence that’s what we may be hearing about. We’ll see shortly. My liveblogging begins, below. Those at home can also watch live. I/O sessions are […]
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 To Phase Out Old Keyword Tool In Exchange For New Version If you try to access Google’s external keyword tool, you may notice that you are sent to the new […]
The Google Webmaster Central team posted a known issue report with a bug in the reporting engine within Google Webmaster Tools. The indexed URLs report is currently showing 0 pages indexed for most sites who have submitted sitemaps to Google Webmaster Tools. The notice reads: The indexed URL counts for Sitemaps that you have submitted […]
One of my previous columns here on Link Week showcased a number of tools commonly used in link building. Since that post, a large number of new tools and services have come online, so I thought an update would be helpful. Not all of the sites listed will be traditional linking tools, I’ve also included a number of […]
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 […]
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 Testing Live Video Stream In Street View According to the Qualite Search Marketing blog, Google has been testing live YouTube video in Google Street View maps in Norway. This is […]
Earlier this week, Hitwise put out stats suggesting that Facebook is beating Google and Twitter when it comes to driving traffic to news sites. I dug a little deeper, and I beg to differ. Along the way, some pokes at the need to more digging into stats in general. The Hitwise blog post reported that […]
Google says it may allow people to participate in Google Buzz without having it integrated within Gmail, in addition to offering a combined Gmail service. That may be a welcome move for users of both products, especially in light of the substantial privacy concerns voiced this week about Google Buzz. “It’s clear that interest in […]
In October 2009, Google proposed a new standard for implementing AJAX on web sites that would help search engines extract the content. Now, there’s evidence this proposal is either live or is about to be. Read on for more details on the proposal, how it works, and why it might be past the proposal stage. […]
This week, I’m stepping away from my usual article format and instead, address several linking related questions and comments I haven’t seen discussed as much across the link building blog/twitter/feed o-sphere. I welcome your feedback, comments, opinions and answers. People will tell you that one of the better ways to spot link targets is to […]
Not a month goes by without someone launching a new real-time search engine; but after trying out most of them, there are few I use on a regular basis. Factery Labs is about to change that with today’s launch of its real-time fact engine at 1:00 pm ET. Where other real-time search engines focus on […]
Your resolution list might look different than this one, but that’s not the point. The point here is that you actually have an SEO resolution list. Either get cracking on those projects that stalled in 2009 and find your success by managing the work smartly, or use some of these ideas to jumpstart your 2010 […]
Google is fighting back against the get-rich-quick and work-from-home scams that use its name. The company says it’s suing to stop what it calls “a widespread Internet advertising scam” that often goes under names like “Google Cash,” “Google Money Kit,” “Google Profits,” and more. Google has made available the text of its lawsuit (PDF) against […]
So finally, we’ve got Google Real Time search, as the company has announced. Below, I’m doing a quick hit on what’s it is, how to use it and how it compares to that last Google real time search thing you may recall hearing about. How do you get it? It’s rolling out over the next […]
Although some GeoCities web sites are still online, all three major search engines have removed the domain from their search indices. As of this morning, a site:geocities.com search on Google, Yahoo, and Bing shows that geocities.com is dead and buried. Yahoo announced earlier this year that GeoCities — a free web hosting service that it […]
Microsoft’s Qi Lu announced two new partnerships today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Here’s a transcript of his chat with Tim O’Reilly. Qi Lu I was at Yahoo for 10 years, and I always told Jerry, after 10 years I’m going to try something new. I went to Microsoft because I wanted […]
Bing new Bing Twitter Search has gone live today, made possible through a new deal cut with Twitter. Below, a close-up look at features in the new service. Bing Twitter? Bing Facebook? Bing Social Search? “Bing Twitter Search” is my name for the new service. Bing tells me officially, it’s called “Bing Twitter.” That sounds […]