Demonstrating E-A-T: Tactics to implement, and avoid, for greater search visibility
Lily Ray of Amsive Digital shares trends that are common among core update losers and the techniques she uses to help her clients bolster their E-A-T.
Topic: User-generated content
Is more transparency from Google a good thing?; Wednesday’s daily brief
Also UGC spam, shopping policies, phone calls and more.
You can now submit HTML directly to Bing via API, surpassing BingBot; Monday’s daily brief
Plus, the rebranding of local businesses for GMB advantage (and why it doesn’t work)
As UGC gets a pandemic bump, brands need to leverage customer content now
Luggage maker Calego says the playbook it developed before COVID-19 has really paid off as the importance of UGC grows
We’re all in this together: The partnership between marketing and automation; Monday’s daily brief
Plus, the local SEO problem of 1-star, no-comment reviews
Server-side rendering: What SEOs need to understand
A guide for search marketers on how rendering JavaScript impacts search results.
Content consolidation among winning SEO strategies, award winners say
This year’s Search Engine Land Award winners for Best SEO Initiative sat down with Search Engine Land’s own George Nguyen to talk SEO tactics and strategies.
Social Shorts: YouTube expands ad inventory, Twitter launches Fleets, more
YouTube to show ads on channels that aren’t in the Partner Program In it’s latest terms of service update, YouTube creators agree to allow the service to monetize their content with ads (or by charging users for access) but are not necessarily entitled to revenue sharing. To be eligible for YouTube’s revenue sharing Partner Program […]
Majority of consumers want standards and tougher action against review fraud
Survey finds U.S. consumers want severe financial penalties for retailers that don't protect review integrity.
Google’s new treatment of nofollow links has arrived
Here’s what you need to be aware of as Google begins viewing nofollow links as a hint for crawling and indexing.
SMX Advanced Overtime: Your questions answered about webspam and penalties
Bing's Frédéric Dubut and ex-Googler Fili Wiese covered a wide range of questions in Seattle and will be sharing more insights at SMX East.
What really matters in Google’s nofollow changes? SEOs ask
Who benefits, who will implement the new attributes and how much change should sites expect?
Google to treat nofollow link attribute as a ‘hint’
Google is also adding two new link attributes, one for sponsored links and one for user generated content links.
New Google Shopping program enables customer photos to show with their product reviews
The feature is rolling out now and available through a handful of reviews partners.
“Popular dishes” have arrived in Google Maps listings
Machine learning will match restaurants’ most popular offerings with corresponding reviews.
User-generated content for SEO: The cost-benefit analysis you need
Understand the pros of UGC and precautions to make sure it helps, not hurts, your SEO efforts.
SearchCap: Google blog comments & People also ask in Google
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Nofollow couldn’t save the Google webmaster blog from comment spamJan 14, 2019 by Barry Schwartz Google’s plan of “preventing comment spam” with the nofollow link attribute didn’t work for its own […]
User comments in Google search restricted to live sports games
No, searchers really can't comment on Google search results. This is a sports feature for sport direct answers.
SearchCap: Schema strategies, Google Shopping Insights, Google Cache
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 Ads Report Editor gets two new landing page reports Oct 16, 2018 by Ginny Marvin New columns are available with an update to what was the final URL report. Developing […]
EU approves controversial copyright directive aimed at Google, Facebook, Twitter
The new rules, which require member-state approval to go into effect, amount to a kind of 'GDPR for copyright.'
SearchCap: Google Search Console, negative SEO & 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: Webinar: Close the Online/Offline Data Gap with AI-driven Call Intelligence Jul 13, 2018 by Digital Marketing Depot With mobile search and voice interactions on the rise, it’s more important than ever […]
Google now has 50M Local Guides adding content to Google Maps and Search
The number of Guides has grown by 10x in just one year.
Google asks some searchers to tag movies with critic statements
Google is experimenting with a new movie feature to let searchers tag videos.
SearchCap: Pinterest Lens, SEO budgets & reviews user behavior
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Pinterest’s Lens update adds a Snapchat-style look and a fashion sense Jun 21, 2017 by Tim Peterson Pinterest is making its image-scanning visual search tool easier to use and more useful […]
Reviews & other UGC more influential for consumers than search engines & ads [Study]
After ratings and reviews, search engines had the greatest influence on buying behavior.
SearchCap: Google algorithm changes, Google Maps lists & people also ask
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: No comment on possibility of a Feb. 7 algorithm updateFeb 13, 2017 by Barry Schwartz Did your rankings in Google get better or worse over the past week? Many webmasters […]
SearchCap: AdWords reports, CTR data & Google Maps ads
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Merkle’s early data on expanded text ad CTRs: Results are mixedJul 29, 2016 by Ginny Marvin The agency looked at expanded text ad performance from both brand and non-brand traffic. Excited […]
SearchCap: Google mobile-friendly tool, Bing Ads editor & 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: Google launches their new mobile-friendly testing tool May 17, 2016 by Barry Schwartz Google revamped the mobile-friendly testing tool after its launch back in November 2014. Bing Ads Editor 11.0 debuts […]
Google Maps Hack Shows Android Mascot Relieving Itself On Apple Logo
VentureBeat chronicles another episode in the sometimes delightful, sometimes cringe-worthy history of off-color, user generated content on Google Maps. The subject of the hack today is the image of an Android mascot urinating on an Apple logo. Here’s the image as it appeared earlier today via VentureBeat: Google subsequently removed the image. The company also […]
SearchCap: Google Drops Links, AdWords Structured Snippets & Mobile-Friendly Algorithm
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 Changes Car Insurance Links After SEOs Complain Google quickly changes their keyword rich anchor text in a recent blog post to avoid controversy in the SEO industry around link spam […]
How To Generate Customer Experience Reviews For SEO – Part II
In part 1, we talked about some practical tips for converting a satisfied customer to a raving fan who is willing to talk about their experience with your service-based company online. In this article, we’ll discuss how to get that fan to talk about your website in a way that benefits your search marketing efforts. Creating […]
New CityMaps Hopes To Compete With Social And Editorial Content
Mobile mapping provider CityMaps recently redesigned its iOS app. It impressively includes home-grown vector maps, built from the ground up. Beyond this CityMaps is trying to offer deeper editorial and social content to differentiate from other mapping and local-search apps. CityMaps also invokes the language of “personal assistant” in its promotional video (below). These concepts […]
Google Notifies Sprint Of Spam Penalty; Seeks Advice In Google Help Forums
The latest large brand to be hit with a user-generated content spam penalty notification is Sprint, the large US wireless communications company. Similar to Mozilla’s penalty and BBC’s penalty, Sprint was penalized for user-generated content spam on a portion of their site that was open to anyone to post links and content. Also similar to […]
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 […]
Google Panda Two Years Later: 5 Questions With HubPages CEO Paul Edmondson
(Editor’s Note: This is the final article in a 3-part series looking at the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first two articles in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery and Google Panda Two Years Later: […]
Facebook’s Graph Search & YourTrove’s Social Search: 5 Questions With Jesse Emery
[Ed. note: This is the first of what will be an ongoing interview series called “5 Questions With…,” in which we’ll publish brief interviews with interesting and important online marketing newsmakers. Depending on the topic, the interviews may be published on Search Engine Land or Marketing Land and, depending on the topic and interview subject, […]
Yelp Adds Restaurant Menus (And Images)
Following on the heels of Foursquare, YP and a few others in the local segment Yelp is adding restaurant menu information and pricing. With the unfortunate headline “Yelp Menus: Connecting People with Great Local Food Porn,” the Yelp blog explains that menus will be paired with users’ uploaded food images: Now you can not only […]
Google: Many Popular Sites Will Escape Pirate Penalty, Not Just YouTube
Google says that YouTube isn’t going to somehow solely escape its new “pirate penalty.” Any popular site may be OK, as the penalty works off of more than pure copyright infringement reports. Nuances in calculating the penalty should save popular user-generated content sites, the company said. The Pirate Penalty Initially, it sounded as if sites […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 7, 2012
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Effective B2B Link Building – Webcast Next Week Features Debra Mastaler Search Marketing Now will host a webcast next Wednesday, March 14 at 1 PMEST. “Effective B2B Link Building” will feature […]
Former Mobile Search Engine Taptu Reinvents Itself As Tablet Platform Tool
The search technology behind failed social search engine Worio became the guts of the successful Zite app, which was recently acquired by CNN. Similarly Taptu, which began as a mobile search engine in the pre-iPhone era (2006), did almost the identical thing and is hoping to follow Zite’s lead. Originally Taptu was a search engine […]