Internet Marketing Views

LinkedIn - Making of World’s Largest Professional Network

2018-07-09T18:00:00.000+01:00

LinkedIn is a Social Network service which offers business and employment related facilities. It is vastly used for professional networking worldwide. LinkedIn runs largest professional network in the world on internet. LinkedIn has more than 562 million users belonging to over 200 countries. More than 46 million students and recent college graduates are members and they are fastest growing demographic on LinkedIn. More than 20 million companies are registered on LinkedIn. Fifty thousand skills are listed on LinkedIn. More than 11 billion endorsements have been given so far on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn started off in the living room of co-founder Reid Hoffman at Mountain View, California, USA in 2002. It is headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California, United States. LinkedIn now employs over 11 thousand workers. Jeff Weiner is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of LinkedIn since June 2009. LinkedIn has three subsidiaries namely SlideShare, Lynda.com and Connectifier. LinkedIn celebrated its eighth anniversary in 2011 by becoming a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in December 2016 keeping same company leadership.

LinkedIn is available in 24 languages. LinkedIn generates revenue from four Business divisions. Talent Solutions offer paid branded corporation and career listing pages for recruiters and corporations, pay-per-click targeted job ads, and paid access to LinkedIn database of users and resumes. Marketing Solutions provide Pay per click-through targeted ads for advertisers. Premium Subscriptions allow LinkedIn users to pay for advanced services, such as LinkedIn Business, LinkedIn Talent, LinkedIn JobSeeker, and LinkedIn Sales for sales professions. Learning Solutions helps users in learning various skills related to their job function or personal learning goals, on the Lynda.com or the LinkedIn Learning platform.

Acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft has brought together the world’s largest professional network and the world’s leading professional cloud. LinkedIn hopes that combining forces with Microsoft will fast-track their mission to connect professionals of the world, to make them more productive and successful. It will eventually help drive economic opportunities for all members of the employees over the world. LinkedIn changed its user interface for desktop in January 2017. A new user interface was introduced in April 2018. LinkedIn is working on creating an Economic Graph. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner had set this goal after getting inspired by Facebook’s Social Graph since 2012. LinkedIn gave users access to the economic graph's data with more thorough filtering of data through its Galene search architecture from June 2014.

Top free Blogging websites for successful Weblogs

2016-01-01T11:00:00.001+00:00

Blog (an abbreviation of Weblog) is an informational website comprising of distinct entries called posts. It is also called online journal or diary. Posts are normally showcased in reverse chronological order. The most recent entry is displayed first. It also contains links to articles on other websites or same blog in some cases. Blogging has become a powerful way of Content Marketing.

Several free Blog creation platforms are available over the web for bloggers. WordPress and Blogger are the most popular weblog platforms with no cost. Tumblr and LiveJournal are also extensively used for maintaining blogs. Blog.com and Weebly are also good options for bloggers. There are loads of free blog publishing websites.

Blogger is commonly used worldwide because it is a blog-publishing service by Google. If you have a Google account, then you are ready to go. It can easily be connected with Google+ for social interaction. Blog can be easily checked for Search Engines friendliness in Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools). Blog traffic can be monitored through Google Analytics. Blog can also be set on Custom domain with 3rd party domain registartion websites.

Internet Marketing Views - Insights about Search Marketing, Social Networking, Content Marketing

Twitter removed 140 character limit for Direct Messages

2015-08-13T16:27:00.000+01:00

Twitter has lifted 140 character limit for Direct Messages. Now you can now chat on and on, in a single Direct Message. It was revealed by Sachin Agarwal (@agarwal), Twitter's Product Manager for Direct Messages, in a post in Twitter Blog on 12 August 2015. It is a big step towards making the private side of Twitter more powerful and fun.

Direct Messages allow people to have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events on Twitter. Each of the trillions of Tweets shared across Twitter daily is an opportunity for people to start a discussion about what's going on in the world. Due to this reason, Twitter has devised few changes to the Direct Messages in last some months gradually.

Twitter has rolled out this change on Twitter.com, TweetDeck, Twitter for Mac, Twitter for Android and Twitter for iOS apps. Twitterati should note that the latest versions of Twitter apps are required to get the update right away. Sending and receiving DMs via SMS will still have 140 character limit.

Getting Started With Internet Marketing: Consider These Ideas

2015-05-11T16:12:00.003+01:00

Internet marketing is like traditional marketing in many ways, but can be vastly different in others. A traditional marketing education or background doesn't guarantee you success, but many of the ideas you learn there can be useful. Here are some ideas from all sorts of fields that Apply to internet marketing and will help you be successful.

Goal-oriented Internet Marketing strategy

When creating your Internet marketing strategy, include one or two long-term goals. Your daily to do SEO list is designed to generate income but the long-term success of your internet business will depend on developing a list of tasks to work on, that will promote this income for years to come. Set a timeline for accomplishing specific tasks.

Search Engine Friendly URLs for better performance

Your URLs will be more popular with search engines if they have clear, descriptive names with easily understandable keywords. For example, "www.doghouse.com/doghealth/nutrition" is easier to understand than "www.doghouse.com/0734214/6al331.htm". Dynamic URLs, even if they contain readable keywords, will still be less friendly to the search engines. Your visitors will also navigate your site easily.

Blogging

Create a blog for your site and link back and participate with other related blogs. Search engines are constantly crawling blogs and the results of jumping onto the blogosphere can be of great use to your search results and click backs. When you work with other related blogs, you will also pull in clicks from the readers of the other blogs.

Increase your Outreach

Decipher what vernacular is used regarding your brand by looking at all conversations about your brand online. You can make a word cloud and use the most prominent words in your online marketing campaigns to more effectively reach out to audiences. You will be able to speak to them more clearly if you are using terms they know, use and accept as sensible.

Social Media for Communication and Influence

Harness the power of the Social Networking to your advantage. Get your word out through the positive use of the Social Media. Build your authority by following influencers in your niche'. Follow and communicate with them to get in touch. Ask for their opinions on your products / services. Their endorsements will boost your business' branding. Gradually improve your standing to become influence for others.

Placing Ads in your Niche' for Targeted Traffic

Try solo ads. Solo ads are ones that you provide to owners of e-mail newsletters. How does this help you? You are able to reach a targeted group that might be interested in what you have to offer. More than that, your appearance in the newsletter means the owner approves of you. So, the readers are more likely to respond favorably to your ads.

Research for New Ideas

Take time off for brainstorming and to redeem yourself. Internet marketing can very easily consume your whole day, since you're sitting in front of the computer. This can make you tired, irritable and someone who is not good to be around. Take some time off to exercise or clear your mind and you'll come back to work, well-rested and invigorated.

Exercise extreme caution before you pay anyone for internet marketing advice. Books, videos and courses sold on the subject come from "experts." Remember these "experts" are making their money selling you books instead of running internet marketing campaigns. Check the background of such experts before giving them money; make sure they have the experience to know what they are talking about.

Conclusion

No matter what your background or education, internet marketing is a field where anyone can be successful. A knack for selling your product and a drive to greater success are key to being great in this career. Never giving up and striving to learn more will ensure continued success, so keep up the good work.

Improve SEO Skills for better Search Ranking and Web Traffic

2014-12-15T17:00:00.000+00:00

Search Engine Optimization has proven to be very successful in bringing traffic to websites. Whatever type of business you run, SEO helps in achieving good Search Rankings. If you want to promote a website, read and implement the following tips to make the most of your Internet Marketing efforts gradually.

For proper SEO, the first thing you should do is get noticed by major Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. All you have to do is visit a special site, fill a short form with your website address. You'll hopefully be "crawled" and "added" by that search engine faster.

Think of all keywords which are related to your website. You should try to rank well for all associated keywords you can think of. Having a keywords list can help search engine results by allowing you to make best use of the keyword tag. It can give you more possible ways to get targeted visitors.

Carry out a search for site:www.yourdomain.com using Google. You will be able to see which pages of your website are being indexed and if those pages are being presented in a way which will enable searchers to visit your site. You can then do optimize the pages of your website which aren't indexed.

Google reckons that Page Rank is not a ranking signal anymore. But still you should improve your page rank. Continuously work on your pages, update content and always aim for betterment. Visitors will not come and stay on your website if you do not have information, that is useful for them.

Include the most important keywords of your website in the title of your homepage and the navigation bar. These texts will be searched before the main text of your site. Hence you should add the keywords with which you want your website closely associated with.

Make your website URL more SEO friendly. Include your main keywords in your site address, like "www.antiquebookstore.com". This will enable search engines easily find your website. Similar rule should be applied on other pages of your site like "www.antiquebookstore.com/stone-age-history". Use hyphens rather than underscores in URL, because hyphens count as spaces but underscores do not. But it should not be done too much. Links having multiple dashes look like spam and people might not click on them.

If you pick too general keywords, then your try to optimize the search engine results will result in frustration. Make use of specific keywords to limit your competition and increase the outcome of your optimization efforts. For example, it is harder to improve your ranking on "auto sales" than "used luxury auto sales". Keywords incorporating location will further increase your chances.

Thoroughly assess all of your website's options when attempting to enlist other sites to link your own as a means of increasing traffic. For smaller and start-up sites, this need to exercise extreme restraint in deciding site partners can be especially difficult. However it is important to remember, that having your website linked by undesirable sites can make decrease the appeal of your own site in the eyes of more well-known, relevant sites.

You are sure to see an increase in your ranking and traffic to your website if you consider the preceding information and include it in your search engine optimization strategy. These SEO tips have proven to be quite valuable to many other companies. Implementing these Internet Marketing ideas can be very profitable for you.

SEO in Future: Internet Marketing now and in Coming Years

2014-06-28T12:20:00.001+01:00

SEO has altered in last few years. Search Engine Optimization has gone upside down. Gone are the days of manipulating Search Results through dubious techniques in major search engines like Google. Search Engines now require clean work. Search professionals should keep in view the Search Algorithm changes like Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates. They should follow industry standards, results in improved and long lasting search rankings.

Link Building still works but have to be done carefully. Unique content with just 1-2 keywords is the way to go. Best strategy is to not place links on Brand / Money keywords. Linking should be natural, so that it is not termed Link Spamming. Presence of a related keyword in the context of link is fine. Make your Link profile diverse, and keep doing it. Do not rely on just one or two techniques. Work on different channels simultaneously. This will ensure diverse traffic and will result in increased lead generation.

Social Media presence is very important now. But the point is, it should be used in a natural way. Make your content interactive, through images, videos, polls and related stuff. Develop interest in your fans; so that they like, comment and share your content. It is an ideal scenario, if your followers get your word out themselves. Social Networking can play a vital role in branding and lead generation.

Branding and Reputation Management are very important now. Companies and individuals should focus on their brands. A strong brand name ensures high traffic and generates more leads. Reputation Management also needs much attention. Users read websites reviews before making buying decisions. Organizations should monitor their web reviews and should improve these gradually. If you are a local business, then look for your Google+ and Facebook reviews also.

Year-End Zeitgeist 2013 - Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker and iPhone 5s top Google Trends

2013-12-17T16:39:00.000+00:00

Google has unveiled the results of Year-End Zeitgeist 2013, which illustrates the people, places, events and activities that captured the world's attention. Only a few have made to Google's trending list in its 13th edition of "the spirit of the times". Nelson Mandela, Paul Walker and iPhone 5s emerged as Top 3 global searches.

2013 Google Zeitgeist has presented more than 1000 top-ten lists from 72 countries with categories like Top Trending Searches, Trending People, Most Searched Events, Consumer Electronics and more. In something unique for this year, the Search Giant has combined its Zeitgeist with Google Trends. The late Cory Monteith, and the Harlem Shake rounded up the top five Trending Searches worldwide of 2013. The findings were revealed in a 2013 Zeitgeist post on Official Google Blog by Amit Singhal (+Amit Singhal), Senior Vice President and Google Fellow on 17 December 2013.

Google has made an interactive data visualization based 3D global map, displaying the top search trends of 2013 by day in cities worldwide, to enable people to parse through any major everyday popular searches. Users can readily rotate the globe, select a city and discover the subjects that made people to search on any day of the year, from international news to local sports. People take an international trip of the greatest instances from the last 12 months in their Year in Review video of 2013.

KnowEm: Social Media Identity Protection & Online Brand Management

2013-12-14T08:45:00.002+00:00

KnowEm provides Social Media Identity Protection and Online Brand Management services. People can search for user name availability on over 500 social networking sites, public domains, trademarks and the USPTO Signature data source to check if your company, brand, product, or login name is obtainable or consumed. This can help them in quickly securing their brand identity on the internet.

KnowEm was designed to help individuals, businesses and Fortune 500 companies to find out whether their names, brands, or copyrighted properties are available or taken on Social Networks. It also guides about how to make contact with each website in order to have the stolen user name released and handed over to the right person or enterprise. Since the start of operation, it has aided people or corporations to book over 600,000 profiles and reported their customers over 50,000 problems of squatting and misrepresentation of a brand, username or trademarked terms.

KnowEm currently tracks over 550 popular Social properties. Websites categories include Blogging, Bookmarking, Business, Community, Design, Entertainment, Health, Information, Micro-blogging, Music, News, Photo, Tech, Travel and Video. See the complete online websites list here. It offers the facilities of User Name Check, Social Profile Check, Domain Name Check and Trademark Availability Check.

KnowEm LLC was founded in April 2009 by Barry Wise, who is Principal / Chief Developer / Architect. Michael Streko is Co-Founder / Principal and Brian Solis is their Business Advisor. More details about the company and the staff can be found at their About page. People can interact with them freely though their Social properties: KnowEm @ Facebook & KnowEm @ Twitter.

Facebook updated News Feed Algorithm to display more High Quality Content like News Articles

2013-12-03T11:00:00.000+00:00

Facebook has updated the News Feed algorithm to include links to more "high-quality" content like news articles in place of meme photos that redirect users to different sites. The move is to provide more relevant information to its users. Social Networking leader carried out intensive research before incorporating more "high-quality" articles into the News Feed area instead of latest memes. With this integration, users will more frequently see links to articles about current events, sports or politics.

Facebook engineering manager Varun Kacholia and software engineer Minwen Ji wrote in a post on the company's Newsroom on Monday, 2 December 2013:

We've noticed that people enjoy seeing articles on Facebook, and so we're now paying closer attention to what makes for high quality content, and how often articles are clicked on from News Feed on mobile.

The change will particularly be visible on mbile phones, as the company brings trending news on the go. This will easily provide users the knowledge of what's going on around the world and in their friends circle. Decision to reduce memes shouldn't have significant effect on users, as most people show interest in news articles over photos.

Facebook is also driving user engagement as the new algorithm change will sometimes bring few stories on top of the News Feed section, whenever new comments are added. This allows the users to keep the conversation going on.

Effects of Google Hummingbird Search Algorithm on Content

2013-09-28T11:00:00.000+01:00

Google has revealed Hummingbird Search Algorithm, the latest algorithm update since 2010's Caffeine update. It can be called another search results overhaul. But it is just a small part of an overall evolution to bring better information to consumers for the moments that matter.

Google is putting an effort to practice what they advocate all the time. Google has its sights set on becoming as the ultimate source of information. This new update is a clear indicator that Google is making bold moves to become an increasingly integral part of the life of people. This is not limited to supplying information that people want. But also provides intelligence that people did not even know they needed. Google is becoming to information, what Apple is to devices, in old school SAT analogy.

Content should satisfy Intent

Two years back, a shift was seen in web search from "plain" keyword optimization to a more "intent" based channel. Search Engines tried to "best guess" the intent of a search user. They matched it to the relevant content that most probably provided best answer of the query of a user. "Context" has entered search strategy lexicon recently, which accounts for more personalized search tactics based on location, platform, device and/or hyper local factors.

Announcement of Google Hummingbird update, which is incorporated for search ranking from last month, is a right step in this direction. Google is more emphasizing the importance of user intent over pure keyword based interpretation. This new update now better acknowledges context, timeliness, conversational search location cues, Knowledge Graph data and understanding of complex queries.

Content should be Rich

How marketing experts should concentrate on their content to fulfill complicated customer intent? Content is required to be unique, rich, in depth and explanatory, to be considered the most appropriate type of information for almost any search term. Websites which are presently creating rich content that try to response more extensive questions, instead of keywords or phrases, will improve their possibilities of positioning better with the new update. Although sites have to depend greatly on rich content, they also should continue to be properly-developed, which cause it to simpler for Google bots to discover that quality material.

Authorship markup by Google is Important

Because content seems to be the biggest emphasis for this update, it also likely means that authorship will become an even more important factor in optimization. It's interesting that this update is coming right on the heels of several recent notable changes. The first being the complete integration of secure search, which eliminated keyword data from analytics, and the second being Google+ rolling out a change to authorship, which will make it easier on Google to attribute content back to the author. So, while you start thinking about you content program, and whether or not it supports the new algorithm update, don’t forget to take authority into account. Make sure profiles are created, updated, and attributed for all pieces of content.

What will be the Future of Google Search after Hummingbird update?

It is difficult to estimate accurately what the future will be, because Google is obviously unforeseen, but it is easy to state that this upgrade is a obvious shift in the direction of far more Semantic Web, which targets obtaining improved realization of "aboutness" – not only from markup of entities, but in the capability to draw out message from the composition of a phrase – hence there may be possibly on its way in future. Probably the reply is within much more "implicit" search.

Regardless of whether Hummingbird basically alters search in future, its launch passed rather un-observed as just a minor enhancement in search results. Although Google mentioned that the update handles almost 90% of queries around the world, it will seem step-by-step improvement from user viewpoint. Nevertheless, the Marketers must be careful because since the enhancement delivers significant effects from both functional and technical perspectives. Google keeps on moving to a world in which "Content is King" and realizing end user search intent is the objective. Perhaps eventually it will be capable to solve our questions prior to we even inquire about them.

Google Unveiled Hummingbird Search Algorithm & Other Changes At 15th Birthday

2013-09-27T16:00:00.000+01:00

Google announced a new "Hummingbird" search algorithm being live and especially designed to handle complex queries, celebrating the company's 15th birthday in the garage it was born. Big G also revealed a new design for tablets and phones, richer direct answers with comparison, a new song exploration feature and notifications of Google Now information for iOS 7. Hummingbird is especially useful for longer and more complex queries. It affects about 90% of Google searches worldwide. It is the first major upgrade for three years and has already been in use for about a month.

Hummingbird Search Algorithm replaced Caffeine

Amit Singhal, Senior Vice President of Search at Google said:

It took a long time to get results back then. More often than not, you forget what you were searching for in the first place. Now you can speak for searches and with Google Now get the right information at the right time. You should not be spending your time searching. You should be spending your time living.

We just changed Google's engines mid-flight again. Hummingbird is the company's most significant algorithm change since it switched to "Caffeine" in 2009.

Caffeine emphasized at better indexing of websites while focusing on speed and integrating social network results into search. Unlike its predecessor, Hummingbird is more focused on ranking information based on a more intelligent understanding of search requests.

Google stressed that a new algorithm is important as users expect more natural and conversational interactions with a search engine. They are using their voice to speak requests into mobile phones, smart watches and other wearable technology.

Hummingbird allows Google to more quickly parse full questions (as opposed to parsing searches word-by-word), and to identify and rank answers to those questions from the content they have indexed. It is more capable of understanding concepts and the relationships between them rather than simply words, which leads to more fluid interactions. In that sense, it is an extension of Google's "Knowledge Graph" concept introduced last year aimed at making interactions more human.

How the Hummingbird search algorithm affect Search Results?

Hummingbird algorithm is incorporated by Google for search positioning from about a month already. If any huge jumps or drops in your search engine placement have not been noticed, probably there would not be in near future also. If rankings did change, it could be due to Hummingbird. But it could also be due to some of the other parts of the Google search algorithm, which are always being changed and improved.

Google improved Voice Search

Google also showed off more advanced voice queries, in which your computer or tablet will answer back to you. Users can ask Google to compare two items, generate a list of songs from a particular artist, or pull statistics about the Eiffel Tower and receive a voice response. In the case of the Eiffel Tower, a user would need to say "Eiffel Tower" only once in a series of questions, and search will remember the context. Amit Singhal explained voice search further: "Voice will be fundamental to building future interactions with the devices [we use]".

Google disclosed Updated Version of Google Search app on iOS soon

Google also announced an updated version of the Google Search app on iOS, which is coming soon, according to Tamar Yehoshua, VP of Search for Google. The new app will allow users to more clearly see their calendar or events cards from the app's home screen, and reminders will now carry over between iOS and Android devices.

Happy Birthday Google

Search giant Google has turned 15. Huge progress and enormous developments have been made so far on coarse of turning Silicon Valley garage startup into the Search Engine leader. Timeline of Google presentrs a broad peak at the lifecycle of the brain child of co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Facebook testing Trending Topics section in News Feed

2013-08-31T17:00:00.000+01:00

Facebook is testing a Trending Topics section in its News Feed. The social network is checking new ways to make Hashtags useful. The section is similar to "Trends Box" of rival Twitter and showcases topics, including Hash-tags, currently popular on the site.

A spokeswoman from Facebook confirmed the test with The Wall Street Journal on Friday, 30 August 2013. She is quoted to have said the following in a WSJ Blog post about Trending:

"We are running a small test of a unit on News Feed that displays topics currently trending on Facebook. Right now it's only available to a small percentage of US users and it is still in the early stages of development. We will share more details down the line if we decide to roll it out more widely."

Facebook launched searchable Hashtags in June 2013, to make it easy for people to see related conversations around a single topic. At that time, the Social Networking company said it would be "rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics". Earlier this month, it started showing trending topics to some mobile web users.

Trend based navigation is a natural outgrowth of adding Hashtags. Facebook is taking a while to go to the next phase. Public-private dynamics work quite differently on Facebook than on Twitter, where the hashtag / Trending Topics idea was popularized. Facebook is using tests to make sure this approach makes sense with its more private model. Let's see if Hashtag.org incorporates Facebook hashtags tracking in future.

Winners of eCities of America in 2013

2013-08-22T07:00:00.000+01:00

Scott Levitan, Director of Small Business Engagement, a division of Google, congratulated eCities of America in 2013. Google eCity Awards recognize the digital capitals of each state; whose businesses are using the worldwide web to find new customers, connect with existing customers and fuel their local economies. Across the USA, the online businesses expect to grow 40% faster.

Following is the detailed post which he wrote about 2013 US Digital Capitals on Google Official Blog:

I love to discover local gems that help make a community unique. Sometimes those gems can be around the corner—like Cafe Borrone, my favorite for Sunday brunch with my family; the food is great and even the dog is welcome on their patio. Sometimes I find those great places when I am on the road—places like Frank in Austin, Texas with their epic sausages or Boulevard Coffee in Ashland, Ore. which has great coffee and friendly people. Some of the best things I discover without even leaving home—like Casa Kids, which designs original children’s furniture from their studio in Brooklyn, N.Y., or Sticks in West Des Moines, Iowa, which sells hand-carved and hand-painted treasures.

The web helps people everywhere discover the best of what’s around the world or around the corner. Ninety-seven percent of Americans who use the Internet—pretty much all of us—look online for local products and services. So it should come as no surprise that the impact on businesses of being online is huge. According to a McKinsey study, small businesses that make use of the web are growing twice as fast as those that aren't on the web. Just as businesses that embrace the web grow faster, communities whose businesses embrace the web grow faster as well.

Given the importance of the web in growing our local businesses and our local economies, we worked with independent research firm IPSOS to analyze the online strength of local businesses in cities and towns across America. Businesses in these communities are embracing the power of the web to find new customers, connect with existing ones and fuel their local economies. Today we’re introducing the eCity Award winners for 2013—the strongest online business communities in each state.

2013 US eCities Winners

FL - Santa Rosa Beach

MO - Maryland Heights

VT - South Burlington

VA - Chantilly

WA - Bainbridge Island

WV - Charleston

WI - Pewaukee

WY - Casper

We hope these "digital capitals" are an inspiration to cities and businesses everywhere of what can be accomplished by embracing the web to grow. Congratulations to the 2013 eCities of America.

Source(s):
2013 eCities of America - Google Economic Impact
2013 eCities of America Award Winners

SEO Ranking Factors - Rank Correlation for Google USA in 2013 - Study by Searchmetrics

2013-06-26T05:00:00.000+01:00

Staff at Searchmetrics have released results of their 3-month long study, SEO Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation 2013 for Google USA. They evaluated the first 30 search results of 10,000 keywords, hence they analyzed 300,000 websites. They also carried out Navigational Searches, filtering largely brand search in order to deliver better result. They searched through titles, descriptions, links, content, Facebook likes and shares, tweets, PlusOnes and more.

Marcus Tober, founder of Searchmetrics said that Ranking Factor – Rank Correlation - US 2013 study, like last year, dealt with the definition and evaluation of factors that differentiate better-positioned websites from pages placed further back in the organic search results – i.e., pages that have a positive rank correlation. Compared to their Google Ranking Factors US 2012 study, they taken significantly more ranking factors into account in their analysis.

Question studied by Searchmetrics:
What do web pages that are well-positioned by Google have in common and what distinguishes them from lower ranking pages?

What factors are playing a role?

You can find the most important factors in our overview of all rank correlation coefficients. These are all the factors we have analyzed and consider relevant. We have presented the relationship between Google search results and the various factors influencing it using the Spearman correlation - a high positive correlation coefficient occurs for a factor if higher ranking pages have that feature / or more of that feature, while lower ranking pages do not / or have less of that feature. In addition to providing an overview of the changes in correlation since last year, we have extended our analysis in 2013 to include many relevant new factors.

Top highlights of 2013:

1. Keyword domains and keyword links have lost relevance
2. Brands are the exception to many rules
3. Social signals continue to correlate very well with better rankings
4. Good content is always important: it comes to quality!
5. The number of backlinks remains immensely important
6. On-page technology remains one of the basics

Following are the Deeper Insights into the Study:

1. Keyword links and domains have lost relevance

The importance of keywords in the URL / domain has significantly decreased as a ranking factor compared to 2012:

In our study, these two factors are considered the losers when compared with last year, because the existence of keywords in the URL and/or the domain have lost their relevance. This also affects backlinks when it comes to plain text keyword links. So it looks as if the days of "hard keyword optimization" are over. Google now puts much more emphasis on natural link profiles. Hard keyword links have lost significant influence and can probably – when used excessively – even have a negative effect; for example, when Google updates its algorithm with features devaluing bad links. Wondering what else has been happening in the field of keywords? Check out the complete version of the Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation study.

2. Brands are the exception to many rules

Last year, brands held a privileged position. This has also been confirmed in this year's study: for brands – and their websites – search engines do not seem to apply the same criteria as for other domains. For example, it seems as though Google considers it natural for brands to have comparatively more backlinks with the name of the brand in the link text alone – what we refer to as "brand links" – and still not be rated negatively.

3. Social signals continue to correlate very well with better rankings

The tendency over the years has been very positive – and this year’s study confirms the trend that became evident as early as 2012: well positioned URLs have a high number of likes, shares, tweets and plus ones and specific URLs stand out in the top search results with a very high mass of social signals. On one hand this means that the activity on social networks continues to increase, on the other hand it means that frequently shared content increasingly correlates with good rankings.

4. Good content is always important: it comes to quality!

For our analysis of content features, we have increased the number of factors significantly over the previous year:

Content factors correlate almost entirely positively with good rankings and were apparently – when compared with the previous year – partially upgraded. Good ranking URLs, to a certain extent have more text and a higher number of additional media integrations compared with 2012. A good internal link structure also appears to be an important quality attribute.

5. The number of backlinks remains immensely important

Backlinks continue to be one of the most important SEO metrics. In this regard, little has changed over the years: sites with more backlinks simply rank better. And this is also the result of our ranking factor study in 2013. However, factors around this metric are subject to evolution: not only are the quantity of backlinks important, but increasingly so is their quality! The backlink profile is nowadays regarded as a kind of conglomerate of very diverse quality factors that we discuss in detail in the study.

6. On-page technology remains one of the basics

The on-page factors surrounding the technical side of building web sites have long been one of the basics of a good search engine ranking – and this will continue. Even more, it seems to be fulfilling certain on-page criteria is not about achieving a favorable ranking, rather, it is the opposite: it is simply negative for the rankings when web pages do not meet criteria. On-page factors are therefore considered more of a prerequisite for ranking higher in search results pages.

The context of the Ranking Factors - Rank Correlation Study:

Search engines work with algorithms to evaluate websites by topic and relevance. On this basis the search engines create a structure for the total of all pages in the search engine index, which finally results in a best possible ranking for users’ search queries. The criteria for the evaluation of websites and the production of this ranking are generally referred to as ranking factors. Please note the difference between correlation and causation in this case. We do not make any statements about causal effects between factors and rankings, but we analyze correlations: and the coexistence of a factor and rankings indicates some kind of relationship.

For our study, we have undertaken a comprehensive data collection which enables the analysis of the Ranking Factors for Google USA in 2013 and also allows us to draw comparisons to our analysis of the Ranking Factors in 2012. This content is an overview of our detailed Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation 2013 study. The results are based on correlation and are not proof of any causal effects.

Keep in touch with latest SEO News by following Marcus Tober at Goohle+ & Twitter and by visiting Searchmetrics SEO Blog.

Facebook introduced Searchable Hashtags, Assured more Features to Discover Public Conversations

2013-06-13T19:00:00.000+01:00

Facebook has announced to introduce Searchable Hashtags from 12 June 2013. Clickable Hash tags will show a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic. Facebook hash-tags will allow users to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion.

The newly offered feature is similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest. Search Engine giant Google is also offering hash-tags support in its social service Google+ already. Facebook members were able to include hashtags in their content earlier, but there was no real functionality. The renowned Social Networking website has said it would be "rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics".

Facebook explained the reasoning behind the addition of Functional Hashtags feature in its blog post as following:

Every day, hundreds of millions of people use Facebook to share their thoughts on big moments happening all around them. Whether it's talking about a favorite television show, cheering on a hometown sports team or engaging with friends during a breaking news event—people on Facebook connect with their friends about what’s taking place all over the world.

To bring these conversations more to the forefront, we will be rolling out a series of features that surface some of the interesting discussions people are having about public events, people, and topics. As a first step, we are beginning to roll out hashtags on Facebook.

Facebook users now can do following:

Search for a specific hashtag from your search bar. For example, #NBAFinals
Click on hashtags that originate on other services, such as Instagram
Compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results

Privacy is a major concern in this new development. "Public Conversation" works differently on Facebook than it does on a service like Twitter, since many Facebook posts have some degree of privacy restriction. Facebook has assured that as always, members control the audience for their posts, including those with hash-tags. A company spokesperson has revealed that from a privacy perspective, hashtags will work similarly to Facebook Graph Search. In other words, users will only see the comments that they're authorized to see. So if you include a hashtag in a friends-only post, then my friends will still be the only ones who can see it in a hashtag search.

Introduction of Hash-tags is the first step by Facebook to help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations. Social Media leader has committed to continue to offer more features in future, including trending hash tags and deeper insights, that help people discover and follow more of the world's conversations. Let's see if Hashtag.org tracks Facebook hashtags in future.

Google Penguin 2.0 Update rolled out to fight more Web Spam

2013-05-23T12:02:00.002+01:00

Google Penguin 2.0 Update, which was the talk of the SEO World of late, finally rolled out on 22 May 2013 afternoon. It affected 2.3% of U.S. English queries. It was also rolled out for other languages world-wide. Scope of Penguin update varies by language, such that the languages with more web spam will be more targeted.

Google's head of Web Spam, Matt Cutts had first announced in March, that soon there would be the next algorithm update of Penguin. On 10 May 2013, he hinted about the impending next generation of Penguin to Search professionals and Webmasters on Twitter by saying: "we do expect to roll out Penguin 2.0 (next generation of Penguin) sometime in the next few weeks though."

Cutts went into more detail in a Google Webmaster Help video on what Penguin 2.0 would unleash regarding Web Search. He also elaborated what new changes webmasters and SEOs can expect over the coming months with regards to Google search results.

He officially revealed about Penguin 2.0 roll-out late Wednesday afternoon on the #199: A Pixel Sandwich episode of This Week in Google show of TWiT.TV. He said on the talk show: "It's gonna have a pretty big impact on web spam. It's a brand new generation of algorithms. The previous iteration of Penguin would essentially only look at the home page of a site. The newer generation of Penguin goes much deeper and has a really big impact in certain small areas."

He highlighted more details on Penguin 2.0 in a new post on his own blog, titled Penguin 2.0 rolled out today, saying that the roll out aiming at fighting more web spam is now complete and affects 2.3 percent of English-U.S. queries, and that it affects non-English queries as well. He wrote:

We started rolling out the next generation of the Penguin webspam algorithm this afternoon (May 22, 2013), and the rollout is now complete. About 2.3% of English-US queries are affected to the degree that a regular user might notice. The change has also finished rolling out for other languages world-wide. The scope of Penguin varies by language, e.g. languages with more webspam will see more impact.

This is the fourth Penguin-related launch Google has done, but because this is an updated algorithm (not just a data refresh), we’ve been referring to this change as Penguin 2.0 internally. For more information on what SEOs should expect in the coming months, see the video that we recently released.

Source(s):
Penguin 2.0 rolled out today
Google Penguin 2.0 Update is Live
Penguin 4, With Penguin 2.0 Generation Spam-Fighting, Is Now Live
Google Pushed Out The Major Penguin Update (v2.0 #4)

Yahoo Chairman Fred Amoroso Stepped Down, Maynard Webb appointed Interim Chairman

2013-04-26T17:00:00.000+01:00

Yahoo Chairman Fred Amoroso stepped down from his post on 25 April 2013. Yahoo! Inc. announced that he will not seek reelection to the board of directors at the upcoming 2013 annual meeting of shareholders. He will serve on the board through the shareholders meeting on 25 June 2013. Maynard Webb Jr has been appointed to serve as interim chairman.

Alfred J. Amoroso replaced Roy Bostock as Yahoo's chairman of the board of directors in May 2012 at the same time when Ross Levinsohn was installed as interim CEO. He led the team that investigated Yahoo's former CEO, Scott Thompson for fabricating an academic degree. He also played a part to bring Marissa Mayer from Google to serve as Yahoo's new CEO.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer said in a statement: "Fred has been a wonderful chairman for Yahoo! over the past year, and I'm personally grateful for his trust and guidance as I took on the role as Yahoo! CEO. Fred's mentor-ship and perspective has proved truly valuable to me in my first few months here at Yahoo!."

Fred Amoroso issued statement: "I'm very grateful and proud of the progress Yahoo! has made over the past year. When I took the position as chairman, I told the board that my intention was to serve for one year, in order to help Yahoo! during a critical time of transformation. In that time, Yahoo! hired a great new CEO, brought on a fantastic management team, revitalized the employee base, and has begun to release top notch new products. With Marissa at the helm and the leadership team in place, this is a natural time for me to transition off the board, consistent with what I said a year ago."

Interim chairman, Maynard Webb has impressive background, including serving as the COO of eBay and the CEO of LiveOps. After the end of Amoroso's term at the annual meeting, the Yahoo board will comprise of 10 members. Yahoo's stock was essentially flat after the news, with the shares price going down 8 cents to $25.12 in after-hours trading on Thursday.

Source:
Fred Amoroso to not Seek Reelection to Yahoo! Board of Directors

Matt Cutts announced Google's new Penguin, Panda & Link Networks Updates

2013-03-12T14:00:00.000+00:00

Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, announced Google's upcoming Penguin, Panda algorithms updates and new link network targets in 2013. He informed about it during The Search Police, SEO Track of the SMX West.

Panda Update Coming on this Friday or Monday
Matt revealed that a Panda Algorithm update will be released anytime from this coming Friday (15 March 2013) till Monday (18 March 2013). The last version was Panda Update 24, out on 22 January 2013. So the new Panda Update 25 is set to come after 8 weeks approximately.

Major Penguin Update in 2013
Matt Cutts also said that there will be a significant Penguin update in 2013. Google's search quality team is working on a large update to the Penguin algorithm. He thinks that it will be one of the more talked about Google algorithm updates of the year.

Penguin Update 1 was released on 24 April 2012 with 3.1% impact. Penguin Update 2 was out on 26 May 2012 with less than 0.1% effect. Penguin Update 3 came on 5 October 2012 with 0.3% change.

Link Network axing Confirmed
Matt Cutts confirmed that Google targeted a Link Network a couple weeks ago. Matt emaphasied that the Search Engine giant will go after more in 2013. He revealed that Google will release another update in the next week or two, that will specifically target another big link network.

Google penalized Russian Backlinks Network in first week of March 2013. Although the Big G did not reveal the name of the affectee, but it was rumored in Webmaster forums to be Russian based SAPE Links.

Reference(s):
Search Engine Land - http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-upcoming-penguin-panda-link-networks-updates-151273
Search Engine Roundtable - http://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-four-16486.html

Did Google penalize SAPE Links (another Link Network)?

2013-03-07T11:00:00.000+00:00

Rumor floating around the SEO industry currently is that Google has crushed yet another link network, SAPE Links. Those using this paid service were supposedly penalized and downgraded in Google rankings over last two days. But not all webmasters agree it is the SAPE link network, rather they feel it may be a different network all together.

Dozens of threads are discussing about downgrades of Google rankings recently. Black Hat World and Black Hat Group have webmasters and SEOs who are hinting that it was due to SAPE Links. While others are not sure whether it is specific to SAPE or some other link network.

One webmaster wrote:
Anyone that use SAPE links see huge drop in rankings today?
Quite a number of Search professionals agreed but not all.

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts tweeted on 13 February 2013 that he was investigating "naughty Russian link selling software". And coincidently SAPE Links is a Russian link network.

@dannysullivan @seocom just another day at the office for me. :) Okay, gotta look at some really naughty Russian link selling software now.
— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) February 13, 2013

Suggestions for Search Professionals and Webmasters:
Always avoid getting back-links from Link Networks. They may seem easy to get and can bring good Search Engine rankings early. But Google is all set to fight spam and low quality sites. Search Spam team of Big G cracks on culprits and penalizes and downgrads them in Google rankings. Always prepare unique content and get related quality back links. That will lead to top rankings in SERPs and qualified traffic.

Proper Keyword Distribution in Anchor Text for good Search Rankings

2013-02-25T10:00:00.000+00:00

After the release of Penguin update by Google, sometime back SEOTacklebox did a webinar about keywords, linking and search ranking. Later they revisited that data after allowing plenty of time to gather more information and came to some conclusions about the best distribution of anchor text for ranking in Google.

It is well known by now that Google does not want people gaming their search algorithm. But still their search results are a product of computer generated algorithm. No person is sitting there to decide, which websites rank and which sites don't, for all search phrases. Due to this basic fact, there will always be ways to improve your search rankings by associating your site with what Google is looking for.

Link building for better search rankings is still necessary. Links are still the primary way, due to which Google decides what sites to rank where. The difference after Penguin update is that now the links need to be distributed in a natural manner rather than a keyword based manner. SEOMOZ published an article sometime ago, about the research on 10 national brand websites, that rank very well in the search engines. They broke down the percentages of links by anchor text. They came up with is a good formula for link building strategy.

Results found shown that about 65% of the links were exact match, phrase matching or brand matching with regards to the anchor text. The breakdown between these three categories was 18% exact match, 17% phrase match and 30% brand match. Remaining 35% back-links were evenly divided between the URL as the anchor text and other unrelated anchor text.

It presents a great scheme to design your own link building strategy. Using the ratios above, here is what a sample link building strategy might look like for a site, called "Widget World" selling "Red Widgets". For every 100 links built, the following should be done:

18 links with anchor text of "Red Widgets" – this is the Exact match
17 links with anchor text containing Red Widgets, such as "Handy Red Widgets", "Waterproof Red Widgets" etc – this is the Phrase match
30 links with anchor text of "Widget World" or slight variation – this is the Brand
18 links with the anchor text of "yoursitename.com" – this is the URL
17 links with random anchor text – this could be long tail phrases like "see more about Red Widgets at our site" or simple phrases like "click here"

This is a simplistic breakdown, but the data backs up these general ratios as being the target. Regardless of whether the back links are built all naturally or built by you or outsourced, if you keep to this ratio you will not be degraded by Google, and you will see your search rankings increase.

When building these links, you can consider building higher page rank or PR links for the first line item – the exact match phrase. This will hopefully transfer a little more link juice through that phrase. When you combine that with the varied anchor text, adhering to these ratios, you have a winning formula for better search rankings.

Source(s):
http://seotacklebox.com/blog/proper-anchor-text-distribution-for-better-rankings/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/anchor-text-distribution-avoiding-over-optimization

Yahoo! & Google Team Up For Contextual Advertising

2013-02-07T11:00:00.000+00:00

Yahoo! and Google have agreed to team up for Contextual Advertising. Yahoo has just lately finalized an international, non-exclusive contract with Google to show ads on different Yahoo! sites and specific co-branded sites using Google's AdSense for Content and Google's AdMob services. Google will start managing some of its AdSense display ads on Yahoo properties, and will become one of various ad systems Yahoo! uses to fill some of its pages. Now the two organizations will have a affiliation just like the one that Google has with online publishers: They provide Google entry to some of their unsold stock, and Google places small ads it operates on part of its advertisers.

Yahoo and Google had long talks about a more engaged ad tie in summer of 2012. That involved a situation where Yahoo would generally give over its ad serving features for all of its lower-priced ads to Google. Those discussions looked unsuccessful after interim Yahoo! CEO Ross Levinsohn was changed by Marissa Mayer. But since then Mayer has employed former vice president of Google's worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, Henrique De Castro as her chief operating officer.

It's worth wondering whether the AdSense ads will result in something bigger for Yahoo! or not? Yahoo has a long-term contract with Microsoft to manage its large search ad business. Marissa Mayer has openly mentioned her frustration with the way that partnership has proved unsuccessful for Yahoo. However, any really important bond between Yahoo! and Google would surely go through loads of regulating evaluation. Possibly the two organizations think what they are up to will not result in any issues in the US or Belgium.

Sara Gorman, a spokeswoman for Yahoo revealed that the ads will be displayed on Yahoo's web pages for finance, news, sports and autos. Yahoo stock increased 1.5 percent to $20.15 in long term dealing after the declaration of the new collaboration. eMarketer reported that Google is predicted to remain on top in the 17.7 billion U.S. dollars market for display ads this year, with 18% share, while Facebook will have 15% and Yahoo share will drop to 8 percent.

Refrence(s):
Yodel Anecdotal - http://ycorpblog.com/2013/02/06/contextual-advertising/
AllThingsD - http://allthingsd.com/20130206/coming-soon-to-yahoo-ads-from-google/
http://www.webpronews.com/google-and-yahoo-are-now-working-together-on-ads-2013-02
http://marketingland.com/yahoo-strikes-deal-to-run-contextual-ads-from-google-32799
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Yahoo-teams-up-with-Google-on-ads-4258204.php

Social Media Marketing - Highs & Lows in 2012

2013-01-15T16:55:00.000+00:00

Social Media Marketing had its Highs and Lows in 2012. So many companies just could not figure out how to use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. It is great to hear some of Social Media campaigns were rightly done. 2012 was a good year for companies who were active on Social Networks. It was not just the big names that saw big change.

Social Media is realatively new aspect for Internet Marketing. But it has become essential for online sales and growth of businesses and products. Social Networking is necessary for qualified traffic, reputation management, brand exposure and marketing success.

Here is an Infographic:

Google Panda Update 20 Released with Impact on 2.4% of English Queries

2012-09-28T16:13:00.000+01:00

Google confirmed on Thursday, 27 September 2012, that they have released a Panda algorithm update. This is the 20th Panda update and thus it is named Panda 20. It is a fairly major Panda update that impacts 2.4% of English search queries and is still rolling out. Late Friday afternoon, Google announced a EMD (Exact Match Domain) update that removed the chances of a low-quality exact match domain from ranking well in Google. But over the weekend, many non-exact match domain site owners noticed their rankings dropped as well. What was it?

Google confirmed that they pushed out a new Panda algorithm update that is not just a data refresh but an algorithm update. Google told us this "affects about 2.4% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice." There is more to come with this update, where Google promises to roll out more to this Panda algorithm update over the next 3-4 days. Here is the comment Google's Matt Cutts sent us after asking about this update

Google began rolling out a new update of Panda on Thursday, 27 Sep 12. This is actually a Panda algorithm update, not just a data update. A lot of the most-visible differences went live Thursday, 27 September 2012, but the full roll-out is baking into our index and that process will continue for another 3-4 days or so. This update affects about 2.4% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice, with a smaller impact in other languages (0.5% in French and Spanish, for example). The sad part is that there are many sites affected by either this Panda update or the EMD update and it is hard to know which update you were hurt by.

Google changed Link Evaluation criteria

2012-03-06T14:00:00.000+00:00

What exactly did Google announce?
Google announced several changes of the ranking algorithm. The most important change was the change of the backlink analysis:

"Link evaluation. We often use characteristics of links to help us figure out the topic of a linked page. We have changed the way in which we evaluate links; in particular, we are turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years. We often re-architect or turn off parts of our scoring in order to keep our system maintainable, clean and understandable."

What does this mean for your web page rankings?
Unfortunately, Google doesn't go into detail. As mentioned in Google's statement, Google uses "characteristics of links" to figure out the topic of a linked page.

Characteristics of Links
We'll take a look at the characteristics below. Then we'll try to find out which element could have been changed.

Characteristic 1: the text of the link
The anchor text of a link has been the most important factor for a long time. If many sites link to a page with the anchor text "green apple" then the page will get high rankings for the term "green apple".

Characteristic 2: the link power of the linking page
Links from pages with many inbound links have a higher influence than links from pages with few backlinks.

Characteristic 3: content and page proximity
If you sell shoes on your website then the link to your website will have a bigger impact if the text that surrounds the link to your page is about shoes. If the link to your website is surrounded by totally unrelated text then the link won't count as much.

Characteristic 4: link attributes such as nofollow and title
Links that use the rel=nofollow attribute don't affect the position of your web pages on Google. Some webmasters think that using title attributes can have a positive effect if these contain the targeted keywords. Others think that this could trigger a spam filters.

Characteristic 5: redirects and shortened URLs
Redirects and shortened URLs such as http://bit.ly/a4X4th are URLs that redirect to another URL. Should these URLs carry full weight when it comes to calculate the position of a website?

Characteristic 6: the age of a website
The older a link is, the more Google tends to trust that link. Links that remain for a long time seem to have a bigger impact than links that come and go.

Characteristic 7: the affiliation of the linking sites
Links from websites that have the same owner and links from affiliates may have a different influence on the rankings of a web page than links from websites that are not affiliated with the page.

Of course, we can only speculate what Google has changed. It is likely that Google now only considers the anchor text of a link if that link is placed in the right context (page and content proximity). Another possibility is that affiliate links (redirected or with page variables) will have less influence on the rankings of a page. If you have followed the tips and tricks of this newsletter in the past then Google's change won't have any negative influence on your website rankings. Just continue to get good backlinks and optimize the content of your pages. You can analyze the different links that point to a website here.

References:
Search quality highlights: 40 changes for February
Google Changes How It Evaluates Links
How Google evaluates links: 7 characteristics

Google extended Panda Search Algorithm update to English queries

2011-03-12T16:00:00.000+00:00

Google has extended its Panda Update in search algorithm to English queries. Google had announced search algorithm change (known as "Farmer" or "Panda") in February 2011 for the US. Google Panda update has now been implemented on all English language queries. This includes both English speaking countries (such as searches on google.co.uk or google.com.au) and English queries in non-English countries (for instance, for a searcher using google.fr or google.de who's chosen English-language results).

The launch impacted nearly 12% of queries in the United States. The impact may be similar for English-speaking searchers across the world. Google claimed that they've gotten a lot of positive responses about the change: searchers are finding better results, and many great publishers are getting more traffic. Google said that based on testing, they've found the algorithm is very accurate at detecting site quality. Google has launched two ways for searchers to block particular sites from their search results recently. The first of these was a Chrome extension.

Google has now launched a block link directly in the search results that appears once a searcher has clicked from the results to a site and then return to the search results. Google said after the initial Panda launch, that they didn't use data about what sites searchers were blocking as a signal in the algorithm, but they did use the data as validation that the algorithm change was on target. Google found an 84% overlap in sites that were negatively impacted by Panda and sites that users had blocked with the Chrome extension.

Google are now using data about what searchers have blocked in "high confidence situations" as a secondary factor. With the initial launch of Panda Update, large sites were primarily affected, as the larger sites; with more pages, traffic, and links, have more signals available. By the latest update, smaller sites will see an impact. Amit Singhal, in charge of search quality at Google said: "this change also goes deeper into the "long tail" of low-quality websites to return higher-quality results where the algorithm might not have been able to make an assessment before".

References:
High-quality sites algorithm goes global, incorporates user feedback - Google Webmaster Central Blog
Panda 2.0: Google Rolls Out Panda Update Internationally & Incorporates Searcher Blocking Data - Search Engine Land