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The Real Reasons Google Killed SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

Google led, orchestrated, politically-framed and set the political tone for much of the Web’s opposition to pending anti-piracy legislation, SOPA/PIPA, because rule of law and effective enforcement of property rights online represent a clear and present danger to Google’s anti-property-rights mission, open philosophy, business model, innovation approach, competitive strategy, and culture.

The much underappreciated subtext of Google’s original rallying cries that anti-piracy bills would be censorship akin to China and Iran, break the Internet, and “criminalize linking” is that Google and others that protested against SOPA/PIPA believe that a “free and open internet” means that they do not have to pay for Internet content (free of cost) and they do not have to ask anyone for permission to use any Internet content (open to whatever someone wants to do with it.) SOPA/PIPA spotlighted how wide the chasm is between the rule of law and property-rights enforcement offline and online.

Google preemptively went nuclear politically, before either the full House or Senate could consider the legislation, because effective property-rights enforcement threatens Google to its core. Expect Google to use its recently-flexed, and newly-appreciated online muscle, as the real political power behind the Internet throne, to continue to thwart enforcement of the rule of law on piracy, property rights, privacy and antitrust.

Why Google Sees Effective Property Rights Enforcement as a Mortal Threat

1. Google Copies the Whole Internet: Google’s search index is a nearly-complete copy of the Internet, encompassing all legal and pirated content, domestic and foreign. Ever wonder how Google could search the Internet for your query and answer in milliseconds? It’s because Google does not search the actual Internet, it searches its constantly updated copy of the Internet that Google stores in triplicate on Google’s cloud servers around the world. Google’s surely appreciates the huge liability it potentially faces, given that its mission is to organize the world’s information, and given that its search bots indiscriminately crawl the Internet; this means Google’s cloud servers effectively store by far the world’s largest collection of pirated content.

2. Google is the World’s-Leading Internet Navigation Tool: Most everyone uses Google to navigate the Internet to find the content or site they seek. Google has 80% of the world’s search market share, 90% share of the world minus China, and 92% share of world’s mobile market share per NetMarketShare. What this means is that the vast majority of the world’s Internet users find pirated content via Google more than any other means.

3. Google Has the World’s Worst Theft/Piracy Track Record: A previous analysis of mine, “The Evidence Google’s Systematic Theft is Anti-Competitive,” documented (with sixty links) eight distinct patterns of Google theft involving most every type of property: copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, contact lists and private information, over a period of several years. What this means is that Google does not want new legislation that gives victims of theft any new tools to prevent piracy because such legislation could vastly increase Google’s vulnerability and liability to property rights enforcement going forward.

4. Google’s Business Model Fuels Piracy: Another previous analysis of mine, “Grand Theft Automated, Online Ad-Economics Fuel Piracy and SOPA opposition,” explained that enabling access to and providing advertising for, pirated content and counterfeit goods and services are big business and nearly pure profit on the margin for Google. First, Internet traffic volume drives online ad economics and piracy drives huge Internet traffic volume. Second, Google’s automation-model both enables and drives online ad-economics and efficient mass market piracy. Third, pirated content is arguably among the most demanded and hence most lucrative information an ad-based model can offer users. Fourth, central to the value of an ad-based website is being able to attract the most traffic because user traffic is what attracts advertisers, which in turn is what commands the highest ad rates and hence drives advertising profitability. Finally, ad-based social media providers like Google+ appreciate that pirated content is what many people most want to share.

5. Google’s Innovation Model Depends on Property Infringement: Yet another previous analysis of mine, “Google’s Infringenovation Secrets,” explains the secret keys to Google’s innovation. First, Google admits that its algorithms are not better; it’s that they have more data than anyone else. And second, they have more data (including propertied content and private information) than anyone because they don’t believe they have to ask for permission to use other people’s property or private information. Google’s “innovation without permission” ethos is essentially “infringenovation.”

In sum, Google — as the world’s dominant navigation tool to find pirated content and dominant monetization engine to monetize pirated content — could unilaterally reduce piracy of American intellectual property if it wanted to. However, for the reasons above, Google does not want to reduce piracy. Google simply wants to do the minimum necessary under the DMCA (taking pirated content down promptly when notified) to meet the technical letter, but not the spirit of the DMCA and property law.

+1’s: the right recommendations right when you want them—in your search results

2011-03-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Google is to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible. But relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages. That’s why we recently started to include more information from people you know—stuff they’ve shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites—in Google search results.

Today Google taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called +1—the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool.” To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.

The +1 button will appear next to each search result

After pressing the +1 button, you have the option to undo the action immediately

Say, for example, you’re planning a winter trip to Tahoe, Calif. When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area. Or if you’re looking for a new pasta recipe, we’ll show you +1’s from your culinary genius college roommate. And even if none of your friends are baristas or caffeine addicts, we may still show you how many people across the web have +1’d your local coffee shop.

The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results). For more information about +1, watch this video:

So how do we know which +1’s to show you? Like social search, we use many signals to identify the most useful recommendations, including things like the people you are already connected to through Google (your chat buddies and contacts, for example). Soon we may also incorporate other signals, such as your connections on sites like Twitter, to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible. If you want to know who you're connected to, and how, visit the “Social Circle and Content” section of the Google Dashboard.

To get started +1’ing the stuff you like, you’ll need to create a Google profile—or if you already have one, upgrade it. You can use your profile to see all of your +1’s in one place, and delete those you no longer want to recommend. To see +1’s in your Google search results you’ll need to be logged into your Google Account.

We’ll be slowly rolling out +1’s, starting in English on Google.com. If you can’t wait to start seeing +1’s, we’ll soon let you opt-in to the launch by visiting our experimental search site. Initially, +1’s will appear alongside search results and ads, but in the weeks ahead they’ll appear in many more places (including other Google products and sites across the web). If you’re an advertiser and want to learn more about how the +1 button works on search ads and websites, visit our AdWords blog.

We’re confident that +1, combined with all of the social content we’re now including in search, will mean even better, more relevant results than you get today.

Originally Posted by Rob Spiro, Product Manager

Use the AdWords Dashboard

2011-03-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

This post is focused around outlining some of the free tools and features that Google AdWords offers but people often don’t make full use of because they forget or don’t know they are available. In the past many AdWords campaigns were monitored from within Bid Management platforms or from within Google Analytics but the new AdWords home tab is seeking to change all that.

The past problem with running your campaigns within the AdWords interface was the limited ability to get a quick snapshot of account performance and quickly identify problems to resolve. The old platform was next to useless and most people quickly starting using the campaigns tab as the default page for their reporting and analysis even when using Google Analytics for discovering actionable insights has issues due to a 24-48 hour delay in importing data.

Benefits of PPC Dashboards?

The biggest benefit of the new AdWords home tab is that the your dashboard can be customised so you are able to focus on the campaign metrics that matter to each member of the team. It can be setup so your account manager, marketing manager and CEO can have a unique dashboard they are able to quickly view and monitor the top level details. While the new dashboard feature has been around for a about 2 months in most accounts it’s likely that most people have failed to notice the update as their default tab is campaigns or they never bother to login to their AdWords account.

One of the better parts about the new dashboard feature is that it can re-use your existing filters that you have created and been using to refine data showing in your campaign dashboard. The other benefit of the new dashboard interface as you don’t have to deal with the limitation that the old keyword performance module was not available for accounts with more than 10,000 keywords which made the previous module fairly useless for most large accounts.

So How do I create new modules?

You can use the AdWords interface to create and save filters that can then be added as modules to display on your home tab which give you a lot more control over what information is contained on your dashboard. Some of the important filters I think most accounts should have are:

Keywords over your Average CPC Rates
Keywords over your Average CPA Rates
Keywords with a higher than average conversion rate
Keywords with a lower than average conversion rate
Keywords that have a lower than optimal ad position
Keywords that have a lower than optimal CTR
Keywords that changed status to limited, issues or not eligible to run

While these are just a few filters I have created that should help you focus on attaining a better ROI but also insure that your AdWords campaigns remain conversion focused. The dashboard modules work best when they are tailored to suit your campaign metrics and it is typically better to use multiple rules for your filters to get only the necessary information. You have the ability to quickly see just the keywords that are driving a bulk of your traffic, those giving you the most exposure via impressions or those making the cash register win via conversions.

What about information overload?

Probably one of the best features of the AdWords dashboard is that if you label your filters well you can minimise the modules and you can see in the screenshot below that the count of items that qualify for that filter are shown in brackets.

What about mobile dashboards?

A growing number of businesses need to have someone checking the campaigns when they are on the road or out of the office and credible mobile solutions are becoming increasingly important for both small companies and agencies using AdWords but is extending to the C-level with an always connected global work force. The new dashboard does load on mobile devices such as iPhone, Android and even WindowsPhone7 but besides quickly checking stats it doesn’t offer the full functionality people expect from mobile apps.

The full mobile version offers a bit more functionality as you can view your saved filters and view any custom alters for key accounts events but is not yet available for all mobile devices such as the Windows Phone 7.

While AdWords for mobile does offer a fairly limited level of functionality it’s likely the functionality will be vastly improved as Google seeks to move it’s platform into the hands of marketers so they can access it anywhere they can get a mobile signal. Outside of the update AdWords mobile dashboard there is only a limited number bid management platforms like Acquisio that have mobile apps for management of your PPC campaigns, so it’s hoping that Microsoft AdCenter rolls out a mobile application soon otherwise if you use platforms outside of Google AdWords you may have to consider a Bid Management platform if you spend a fair bit of time out of the office or at conferences.

What is the limitations of AdWords dashboard?

The downside is the information contained in the modules is not placed into context as you could in the previous version where you could see the top level performance of a particular campaign. The screenshot below shows the ease that you could see how individual campaigns were performing against a previous period of time but was limited as it could not be broken down by AdGroup, Keyword or even select multiple active campaigns only.

What if My Competitor Buys Spam Links to My Website?

2011-03-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

This question has been very often discussed. Yet, we are getting back to it again and again. Let’s try to crear up some confusions?

Here’s what makes us discuss that questions again: Whiteboard Friday from SEOmoz. The question is simple: how Google finds out that a website is building spam links?

Incoming links are not under your control, there is no simple way you can stop your website from getting links back from spammy websites. So what if my competitor buys 100s of spammy links and then points them to my website? Will Google pull my website down like JC Penney and others?

So, is there any way to remove the links from those sites? Is there any penalty for those who are involved in these kinds of unethical activities to pull down the competitor?

Track Your Incoming Links

Gary-Adam Shannon has a wonderful post about this; let me share some important points from the post:

Adam recommends two tools to be alerted of new backlinks: The Google Alert and Link Monitoring Service.

Set the Google Alert for your website name so you will get notifications as soon as your brand is mentioned anywhere online.
Majestic SEO (in my opinion) is the best tool for Link Monitoring. Majestic can give you a daily break down on new links and you can use their graphing systems to see link spikes.

Ok, let’s move on… now I know how to get alerts when any SPAM website is linked to me, but what are the preventives once I am under attack? Let’s suppose I come to know that there are some SPAM websites who are linking to my website and this is not natural, it clearly seems like somebody has done some link buying in against of my website, the graph shows something like this:

So What Do I Do If I Suspect I am Being Spam-Linked?

Do I have to email Google or something like that? What should I do? Keeping this situation in mind, I broke down the situation into three questions:

I emailed the same questions to one of the most creative link builders Wiep Knol. Here’s his reply:

Google’s Matt Cutts has repeatedly mentioned that they will try to prevent this as much as they can. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible, but it would be very difficult for aged domains. New domains are easier to burn with spammy links.

In most cases, Google will simply devalue the paid or spammy links, instead of penalizing the buyer. In some cases, either the link seller or the link buyers will get a penalty, but this is quite rare if you compare it to the amount of sites that sells and/or buys links.

And since it would be *really* difficult to determine which competitor has been buying links for website A, I don’t think competitor B has much risk, apart from bad press when things do come out.

Conclusion:

There is no simple way Google can track who is actually buying the links?

So, what I can do? First, don’t get obessed. In reality this kind of situation is very rare. People would hardly do this kind of investment as you can never be sure if and how it will work. Will it pull you down in SERPs? Will it be ignored? Will it result in wasted money?

Al you can do is to maintain a clear natural link building profile. Nothing is earned as hard and works as good as a crystal clear reputation!

EzineArticles Traffic Update Post Panda

2011-03-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

Early on in the aftermath of Google’s Panda algorithm update (sometimes referred to as the “Farmer” update), EzineArticles was reported to be one of the hardest hit sites. The following week, CEO Chris Knight told WebProNews, “We’ve had quite a few niche categories go up in traffic but the overall is still lower than before last Thursday.”

Still, Knight immediately began making big changes to the operations of the site, in an effort to quickly recovered the lost traffic. We looked at some of that here.

Now, Knight has a blog post/video up, responding to a question from a user, who was under the impression that the site has lost 90% of its traffic. “It’s not true,” Knight said. “Recently, Google had an update that hit us, and we lost between ten and thirty-five percent of our traffic.”

“In our eleven-year history of EzineArticles.com, we’ve never been hit by an update until now,” Knight said, referencing the fact that Google’ makes updates about every day.

“This update went after ‘thin content’,” he added. “This is low-quality derivative content. In fact, we agree with Google on this update, and we’ve made sweeping changes to our quality review system – our editorial guidelines our internal processes.”

“Every year since we began – every month actually – we’ve risen the quality bar. However, in the last few weeks, we’ve risen a year’s worth of quality bar raising in about a two-week period of time. In an effort to weed out thin, derivative, low-quality content, and highlight and identify what is the absolute best content. In fact, I’ve never been more proud of the content I see in EzineArticles.com today, and I’m really happy about…I’m not happy about losing the traffic, but I’m really excited about the quality of the content I see now.”

“In conclusion…we did not lose 90% of our traffic,” Knight said. “In fact, some markets within our 700-niche markets that we serve, went up. Others went down, but overall, we lost between ten and thirty-five percent of our traffic, but we still are serving over one million visitors a day.”

Knight would not respond to a recent request for comment on EzineArticles’ traffic.

One important fact for this site (and any other site affected by the Panda update) to consider is that Google has only launched the update in the US so far. There are some rumblings in the forums that Google may have launched Panda in the UK, but comments from UK webmasters seem to dispell the notion. We’ve heard nothing about it from Google so far.

When Google first launched the update, Google’s Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts said, in these exact words, “To start with, we’re launching this change in the U.S. only; we plan to roll it out elsewhere over time. We’ll keep you posted as we roll this and other changes out, and as always please keep giving us feedback about the quality of our results because it really helps us to improve Google Search.”

Unless your site gets all of its traffic from the U.S., you may be in for further damage from Panda, if you’ve already been affected by it. This will be true each time it rolls out in another country. That is, if you haven’t made adjustments to your content that keep it up to Google’s quality standards.

Of course, that’s easier said than done, because Google doesn’t exactly give you a manual. There are some things we know, and some other things that are possible, however, that may help.

Originally Posted : http://www.webpronews.com/ezinearticles-traffic-google-panda-update-chris-knight-2011-03

Old Black Hat SEO Tricks Still Work

2011-03-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

To monitor a search engine algorithm closely, you need to operate near and over the boundaries that you know. Inevitably, you take the risk of receiving penalties from search engines.

I keep close ties to ex-clients in industries known for their less ethical approaches, just to see what does and doesn't work. Not surprisingly, all the old black hat tricks I used to play keep working.

Here's a look at some of the darker shades of search engine optimization (SEO).

Making the Wrong Page Rank

Influencing the SERP ranking of one's competitor might be hard. Influencing which page on their domain ranks is much easier. If the wrong page ranks, they're likely to miss a conversion.

This is a trick derived from a specific search engine reputation management (SERM) tactic. Instead of pushing a negative result down, you can replace it by a neutral/positive page on the same domain. This way you don't have to match all the domain related factors before focusing on relevance and page importance.

The new result replaces the old one, thus removing a negative result from the top 10.

Both these pages are relevant for Viagra. You can influence which one ranks.

To exploit this on a competitor:

Find an alternative page on their domain with some search term focus.
Find PageRank (link value without particular relevance) anywhere on the Internet.
Link from the page with PageRank or redirect it to the page you want to have ranking.
If enough link value is passed, the second page outranks the original one.

Re-using Link Value for a Different Sentiment

The way you get websites to link to you can be different from the way you use it to rank. As long as these links aren't removed, you can even spread an opposite message.

Research focused on the death toll caused by Viagra is probably much more linkable than a website selling it. Even mainstream media might link to this.

Once the newsworthiness of the research is over, all these links will have ended up in news archives and many links will never be removed. Re-using the link value then becomes easy.

If the new message focuses on the same search term, it will take over the original ranking. Your "Buy Viagra Now" page probably makes you more money than the old research.

To use this to your advantage:

Create a linkable message with the theme of the desired search term. Being against something popular or proving a popular statement is very linkable.
Make sure the links will remain after you change the message.
Change the message on the old URL or use a 301 redirect to re-use the link value.

Ratting Out Your Competitors

This is the most common type of black hat SEO. I know quite a lot of SEOs that report on every paid link they can find. Do so many people want to help Google, or is it in their own best interest?

There are many things your competitor purposefully or accidentally does, that might be seen as spam. If they benefit a lot from it and if it can even get them a penalty, you can choose to point this out to Google.

The most important tip for submitting a spam report: "Make sure you don't violate any rules yourself!" Because you submit a spam report from your Google Webmaster Central account, they could know who you are.

New Black Hat Options Keep Arising

Most old black hat tactics keep working and new ones are continuously being added. When search engines like Google fill one hole, they open another.

It is fun to be on the forefront of this battle, but illogical for most websites to even consider.

If you're not experienced enough to oversee the possible consequences, don't get into black hat. If you're certain about wanting this uncertainty, look me up at a future conference.

Google Panda Updates – How To Survive If Your Site Has Been Panda Slapped?

2011-03-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

Do you know that the latest update in Google's algorithm might lead to a 50% drop in non-paid (organic) visits to your business website? This surely sounds scary for all online marketers! Called Google Panda Updates, this latest change in Google algorithm search is targeted to wipe out the presence of all sites from Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) those cater ‘low-quality' content besides offering a whole bunch of promotional stuffs. This may turn catastrophic for medium and small-sized businesses operating online and banking hugely on SEO to promote their goods and services.

Before going any further you might ask - why is Panda introduced in the first place? Well, reasons may be quite a few, but experts opine that the chief motive behind this new Google algorithm update is due to the shady linking practices which are widely prevalent among online marketers. To get a good ranking for their respective sites, marketers would go to any length even breaching copyrights and moral integrity. Contents were copied at large from one site and published online on sites with little or no permission. Besides duplication of content there were widespread spamming activities which affected Google search engine.

The first attempt from Google to counter the situation dates back to 2009 when Google's caffeine update helped to improve its indexing process to some extent. Hot on the heels of this recent Panda Updates from Google a new ‘Chrome 9+, IE8+ and Firefox 3.5+ extension' for users termed ‘Personal Blocklist' came to aid those who were getting frustrated with spam sites. This new facility helped users to block those sites from appearing in Google search results. Google Panda Updates is the newest addition to the line of counter-measures taken already by the search giant to hit back on purveyors of inferior content.

In spite of experts at Google claiming that only sites with ‘inferior quality content' and those which are "low-value add for users" being trashed by the new algorithmic updates, there are chances of sites belonging to medium-sized and small-enterprises, who are fully dependant on online traffic for their survival, getting injured by the panda onslaught!

So, the question arises - what would you do if you find your site been slapped by the Panda? Well, honestly there's nothing much you can do if it's already happened! But there are ways you can adopt to survive the panda attack, to some extent, and regain your web presence.

The first symptom of your site getting slapped by Google Panda Updates is the significant decrease in page rank listings followed by fall out in the number of web traffic.
As a counter measure Google suggests that you evaluate the whole content of your website, analyze page-by-page, and identify weaker sections and pages with ‘low-quality' content and replace with fresh contents that are meaningful and fully contextual to the page topic. That way your site relevance could gain improvement.
If your site is a voluminous one, with a large number of pages and hence the possibility of duplicate content of your own copy, you can either try to improve, remove them, or totally block the respective pages from Google search using robots.txt.
Another trick to escape the vigilance of Google Panda Updates, in case of duplicate pages, is to add "rel=canonical" tags to the pages concerned.
The catch is to improve any part of your existing site that will ensure a more connected experience for the user.
To improve web traffic, opt for social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Try using these social media platforms to direct traffic to your business site and build up your brand presence.

Do comments if you like this post and want any information...

SEO Is Not Cookie Cutter

2011-03-24T12:24:00.000-07:00

One thing you need to know about SEO is that it takes time to make it work. How much do you value your time? When you price out search engine optimization services and think you’re getting a great deal you might actually just be getting a great deal of headache down the road.

The thing that separates good from bad in the SEO world is not usually seen with the naked eye. The two parts to SEO consists of work that is performed on-page as well as work that is performed off-page. On-page is taken care of initially, making sure that your website communicates effectively to the search engines, telling them exactly what your company does, services it provides, etc. Sounds easy right?

The second piece to the puzzle is off-page SEO which is where things can get a little tricky. When I say tricky I really mean that there are different levels of quality that oftentimes the customer doesn’t get to witness first hand, the biggest piece of the puzzle being the overall knowledge of the search engine algorithms.

I’ve ran into potential clients that have expressed disgust with their current SEO services and I always have to ask why. Nine times out of ten the problem I run into is cheap cookie cutter SEO techniques that end up burning the customer and giving the industry a bad name. There are three bad practices that generally make up a majority of the cases. The first one is referred to as “splogging.” This consists of putting your website link on useless pages all over the internet on splogs (spam blogs) which don’t provide value to the client or any end user.

These splogs are typically generated through programs that are told create blog posts and to put your company link somewhere in a trail of gibberish, providing zero value to the client or the end user. The second bad practice I see all too often is content/websites that are owned by the SEO company you hire being used to link to your website to improve rankings. Sometimes these websites may provide value to the end user, but in the end when you decide to pull the contract you get the short end of the stick because your links are instantly removed from existence. You spent all that money and didn’t get anything in return, plain and simple. The third is comment spamming for page rank. This is far too common as of late.

Companies come in and tell you that they will get you ranking on page one, oftentimes telling you they will give you your first month or two for free if you agree to a larger contract after they see progress. These companies typically don’t want to show you the work they’ve done in fear that you will see just how bad it is. Make sure that your SEO shows you where your links will be coming from or you may end up getting burned.

A high level of quality which consists of content that’s meant to stick and a vast knowledge of the major search engine algorithms will get your company website the outcome it deserves. In general you can expect a quality SEO campaign to take flight (start seeing results) in just several months time with seven to eight months being more realistic for competitive niches, and that’s being honest with our customers.

This is because building quality content and linking it back to your site takes time. This means that you should start to see movement in the search results within that period of time depending on the depth of your niche. If you’re in a competitive field in a large city then obviously it will take longer than if your field were less competitive or if you were in a smaller city or town. If you’re looking to rank on a national level for keywords in a competitive field then it’s going to take longer as well.

In short, SEO is a durable marketing effort. Regard search engine optimization as a continuing investment and treat it as such. Look for SEO companies that use tactics that include great content and strategic content distribution methods. The cookie cutter just won’t cut it anymore.

SEO Is More Important And More Needed Than Ever Before

2011-03-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

The moment there is an update in the search engine algorithms, the pessimists in the SEO industry (and the ones who do not understand the true meaning of SEO) do not miss an opportunity to declare SEO as dead. The last few algorithmic updates have raised the same kind of false alarm by some from the SEO industry.

Before I start to write why SEO is more important and more needed than ever before – Let me assertively affirm that SEO is very much alive and in fact gained more life energies and SEO will remain alive as long as people use search engines to search for quality information for the quest of knowledge.

Google lately has been penalizing sites which have low-quality content, spammy and bought links or have used other methods which go against their norms and hamper the display of quality search results. This has affected the rankings of many sites and the blogosphere is full of posts on how they have been affected especially by the Google Panda Update.

This has been taken negatively by some and people have come to the conclusion that SEO is no longer going to work. But I am of the opinion that if the shift in the rankings is causing such a stir in everyone’s mind, then it only proves that organic search has got a very important place in the whole online marketing scenario. In order to rank in the organic search your site needs to be optimized. Hence SEO is very much needed.

The following study conducted in Jan. 2011 proves that yet people give more importance to organic search:

Google has raised the quality standards for SERPs – hence only sites which did not meet their quality ranking factors were affected; the rest remain unaffected or were marginally affected for some keywords.

When Google started integrating social results with search, as people are sharing an interaction platform via micro blogging on Twitter and Facebook , again the death of SEO was predicted and announced by some who also predicted that social media is replacing search but again to just go in vain.

The search is getting supplemented by social and not getting replaced by search. As social media and all the user generated content is adding the opinions and voice to the topics which are being searched.

Hence it can be said that your optimized site says what you want to say about yourself and company but social media is what the people say about you. When both the versions are in sync, the credibility is established.

The search engines continuously work on the quality of search results – hence the weight given to ranking factors keeps changing.

SEO means adapting your site to the norms and ranking factors of the search engines in order to be found in the search engines. Hence SEO is all the more in demand.

SEO is not dead but yes, it is getting more challenging and has started to gain its true place on the online marketing scenario. SEO is not dead but it has matured, evolved and now demands a quality web presence along with a quality content-rich website.

Keys to Content Marketing Improving Search Rankings

2011-03-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of debate about how creating content can help a website improve its search rankings. While some would like you to believe the “if you build it, they will come” theory, most realize that isn’t going to be the case. I could write the greatest blog post EVER tomorrow and it never see one single visitor.

So the question is, how does content equate to improved search rankings? The answer is through optimization and promotion of that content!

Content Optimization

Once you have developed a great piece of link-worthy content, whether it is a video, infographic, presentation, whitepaper, or simply an awesome blog post, there are a few things you need to take care of before you start promoting.

1. Craft a Compelling, SEO Friendly Title

The title of the page your content is placed upon your site is going to be powerful. It is what search engine visitors will see first when the page comes up in search results, and it is what social media users will see when the page is shared on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks.

Hence, you will want the 60 character title of your content’s page to include your main keywords but also be something that makes someone want to click on it. So if it’s an infographic on content marketing strategies, you wouldn’t want it to be just Content Marketing Strategies but Content Marketing Strategies You Need to Implement Today.

2. Write a Strong Meta Description

I know there’s confusion about whether the meta description helps with rankings, but I want you to ignore that for the time being. Meta descriptions do not only show up in search results – they are usually what social networks pick up when people are sharing your content page.

Hence, you will want to create an extended version of your title – this time you are looking to write 160 characters that convince people why they would want to visit your content.

3. Add Image Tags (If Applicable)

If your content includes images (especially infographics), be sure to name the file with the main keywords (content-marketing-startegy.jpg) and use the appropriate ALT and TITLE tags including keywords so your content can be found through image search as well.

Promoting Your Content

If you want to think in link builders terms, consider promoting your content as sending informal link requests throughout the social media and blogging world via status updates, retweets, blog commenting, and so forth. The more exposure your content gets, the more likely someone might see it, think it’s valuable, and link to it on their website.

So each time you create an amazing piece of content, you will want to make sure to promote it using one or more of the following methods.

Social Media Networks – Sharing with your social networks, especially the main three (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) should be standard when it comes to promoting content. If you do not have a large following for these networks, you should start building your following now!
Mailing Lists – If you have a mailing list, share your new piece of content with your subscribers. It’s a great way to break up frequent sales emails with something that is simply informative.
Blog Commenting – I’m not just talking about building links with your blog comments. If you go for CommentLuv enabled blogs that allow you to leave your latest blog post behind as a link beneath your comment, then of course you’re getting a link. But more importantly, instead of someone just seeing your name with a link to it, they’re getting to see the title of your content which, if it’s compelling, will lead to more click throughs.
Blogger Outreach – If you have produced infographics, video, or something that is embeddable, then you can reach out to bloggers and let them know about your content. Be sure to explain why you think your content would be valuable for their readers – if you can prove its value, the blogger will be more likely to share it to their audience.

By utilizing both good optimization as well as hearty promotion of your content, it will help in building rankings and authority for your website, brand and business...

How Google Destroyed the Value of Google Site Search

2011-03-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Do You Really Want That Indexed?

On-demand indexing was a great value added feature for Google site search, but now it carries more risks than ever. Why? Google decides how many documents make their primary index. And if too many of your documents are arbitrarily considered "low quality" then you get hit with a sitewide penalty. You did nothing but decide to trust Google & use Google products. In response Google goes out of its way to destroy your business. Awesome!

Keep in mind that Google was directly responsible for the creation of AdSense farms. And rather than addressing them directly, Google had to roll everything through an arbitrary algorithmic approach.

< meta name="googlebot" content="noindex" />

Part of the prescribed solution to the Panda Update is to noindex content that Google deems to be of low quality. But if you are telling GoogleBot to noindex some of your content, then if you are also using them for site search, you destroy the usability of their site search feature by making your content effectively invisible to your customers. For Google Site Search customers this algorithmic change is even more value destructive than the arbitrary price jack Google Site Search recently did.

We currently use Google Site Search on our site here, but given Google's arbitrary switcheroo styled stuff, I would be the first person to dump it if they hit our site with their stupid "low quality" stuff that somehow missed eHow & sites which wrap repurposed tweets in a page. :D

Cloaking vs rel=noindex, rel=canonical, etc. etc. etc.

Google tells us that cloaking is bad & that we should build our sites for users instead of search engines, but now Google's algorithms are so complex that you literally have to break some of Google's products to be able to work with other Google products. How stupid! But a healthy reminder for those considering deeply integrating Google into your on-site customer experience. Who knows when their model will arbitrarily change again? But we do know that when it does they won't warn partners in advance. ;)

I could be wrong in the above, but if I am, it is not easy to find any helpful Google documentation. There is no site-search bot on their list of crawlers, questions about if they share the same user agent have gone unanswered, and even a blog post like this probably won't get a response.

That is a reflection of only one more layer of hypocrisy, in which Google states that if you don't provide great customer service then your business is awful, while going to the dentist is more fun than trying to get any customer service from Google. :D

I was talking to a friend about this stuff and I think he summed it up perfectly: "The layers of complexity make everyone a spammer since they ultimately conflict, giving them the ability to boot anyone at will."

Originally Posted : http://www.seobook.com/how-google-destroyed-value-google-site-search

Google Analytics Unveils A New User Experience

2011-03-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Google has just announced a new version of Google Analytics, introducing a completely new user experience. The product got a significant face lift and it now looks more enterprise-like.

The last time Google Analytics released such a major version was 1.5 years ago; but basically the release included the intelligence engine, custom variables, expanded goals, expanded mobile reporting and others.

Below, I share a few screenshots of the new face of Google Analytics (still in closed beta) and explain how they will change product usage. The new version of Google Analytics will gradually rollout to users in phases according to Google.

Main Navigation

It is interesting to see that Google Analytics has adopted the look and feel of the new Google navigation bar released back in February. As we can see below, the new navigation bar prioritizes the following:

Account Home: page where we can find all the accounts to which we have access to.
Dashboards: page where we can find all dashboards from a specific account.
My Site: the place where all reports live, which is now divided between reports and intelligence.
Custom Reports: page where we can manage and create custom reports.
Account Manager: links to all accounts we have access to.
Settings: page with all the accounts in which we can change the settings (i.e., those we are granted with administrator access)

Account Home

The Account Home got a face lift in v4 (see link above), turning it into some kind of dashboard. However, it looks like Google has abandoned this idea and now we will not be able to see metrics on this page, as is currently the case.

The good news is that instead of the metrics, we now have links that can be used to jump to specific reports on a chosen profile. The icons link to the main reporting tabs: visitors, traffic sources, content, and conversions.

Multiple & Improved Dashboards

This is probably one of the biggest hits of the release: the capability to create multiple dashboards, each containing any set of graphs. This is a much wanted feature, especially for large organizations, where employees have very different needs from the tool. Now dashboards can be set by hierarchy, department, interest or any other rule.

In addition, as we can see in the screenshot below, the tool has also adopted Google’s naming convention, now all boxes are called widgets. And the widgets are significantly more customizable than in the past. Now it is possible to define which metric you want to see as well as which visualization you prefer.

The only strange change when it comes to the dashboard functionality is that they can no longer be found on the header of each report. Traditionally, there has always been a button in all reports that enabled adding the report to the dashboard; this was a good shortcut to adding interesting views directly to the dashboard, and now this process will be more difficult.

Report Nomenclature

Besides changing the UI of the product, we can also see that the names of reports have changed. For long time users, the names will sound a bit strange, but they do seem to be more accurate and intuitive. Here are a few examples:

Network properties & browser capabilities now sit under one tab called Technology.
Top Content is now Pages
Goals are now Conversions
Visit Duration and Page depth are now Engagement

User Interface Improvements

In the screenshot below we can see some of the improvements on the UI of the new Google Analytics version.-

Closing Thoughts

As we have seen above, this release is very significant and I believe it is great news for users and the industry in general; once again, Google has raised the bar, especially when it comes to usability and data visualization.

However, I still believe there are some very important issues that should be addressed by Google in the near future. I think the most critical improvements needed are:

Import API for Marketing Campaign Data: the possibility to import into Google Analytics different campaign cost data from places like Bing, Facebook, Yahoo and others.
Adsense Clicks as Ecommerce Transactions: the possibility to track adsense clicks as goals but using the amount received per click as ecommerce transactions
Website Optimizer / Webmaster Tools integrations: being able to use one platform for online marketing activity.

Did you like the new look and feel? What would you like to see changed on Google Analytics?

5 Top Tips for Multilingual Link-Building

2011-03-14T12:09:00.000-07:00

Many businesses are taking advantage of the reach of the internet by creating foreign language websites to access potential clients from every corner of the world. And as with your main website, search engine optimization (SEO) is a must for each of your foreign language websites to generate regular and steady traffic – this includes link-building.

Link-building, to recap quickly for those who don’t know, is an internet marketing strategy which enables online businesses to boost their rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs) by creating links back to their website, through online comments, article placements and directory entries. Links establish connections between websites, and are also the path search engines use to find their way to and index websites. By regularly publishing posts or articles in relevant online publications ,with a link back to your site, you’ll see your site gradually rise in the Google rankings. The good news, if you have multilingual sites, is that it works the same in any language.

You will, of course, have to create content and listings in the relevant language, for which you may have to enlist the help of a language services agency. But to get you started, here are five pointers to keep in mind when embarking on a multilingual link-building mission:

1. Quality over quantity

Search engines take into account the relevance and authority of the sites which are linking to you, so make sure you spend time creating quality content for high ranking sites rather than piles of low-value content for the internet’s backwaters. When it comes to article placement, the information needs to be up to date and of value. By establishing yourself as a quality content provider and an industry expert, you also give your business a good name, which is a great marketing strategy in itself.

2. Get Clued in

Link-building is an ongoing process so get cracking on creating lists of relevant sites for each target language, and make sure you keep abreast of the latest industry news and developments. Over time you’ll be able to create content more quickly as your knowledge increases, and you’ll also get an insight into the varying interests of different language markets.

3. Dodging the duplicate content rule

It is a handy fact that Google doesn’t penalise you for duplicating content in a different language. What this means is that, rather than having copy-writers producing content for language, you can translate or ‘transcreate’ your original content into your chosen languages, saving both time and money.

4. Culturally sensitive pitching and content

Something to keep in mind is the varying cultural nuances and formal procedures required when pitching to, and writing for, foreign websites and audiences. The relatively informal pitching etiquette and writing styles of the UK and US might not be so appreciated in Japan or Germany, so make sure you know your audience.

5. Multilingual link-building on a shoestring

If the budget, or even DIY, option is what you’re after, start your link-building strategy by targeting web directories for each different language. All you tend to need to add your site to a web directory is a short blurb about your website, your contact details, and of course a link to your site. As with most easy options there are some down-sides however. If you are in a competitive niche, web directory submissions alone might not be that effective and a more complex link-building strategy may be necessary, involving article placements.

Building back-links to your translated websites is not something you can choose to ignore, though – because once you’ve invested money in translating and optimising your foreign language websites, you won’t see the return on investment (ROI) that you want if the sites languish down the bottom of the Google rankings (more than a third of all search traffic goes to Google’s top ranking page). The most effective way to start climbing the SERP rankings is by building back-links – so if you’re not already looking at a multilingual link-building strategy, making use of web directory submissions and article placements, then now may be the time to get started!

Google's Matt Cutts Talks Down Keyword Domain Names

2011-03-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have long documented Google's preference toward brands, while Google has always stated that they don't really think of brand.

While not thinking of brands, someone on the Google UI team later added navigational aids to the search results promoting popular brands - highlighting the list of brands with the label "brands" before the list of links..

Take a look at what Matt Cutts shares in the following video, where he tries to compare brand domain names vs keyword domain names. He highlights brand over and over again, and then when he talks about exact match domains getting a bonus or benefit, he highlights that Google may well dial that down soon.

Now if you are still on the fence, let me just give you a bit of color. that we have looked at the rankings and the weights that we give to keyword domains, & some people have complained that we are giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains. So we have been thinking about at adjusting that mix a bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm, so that given 2 different domains it wouldn't necessarily help you as much to have a domain name with a bunch of keywords in it. - Matt Cutts

For years the Google algorithm moved in one direction, and that was placing increased emphasis on brand and domain authority. That created the content farm problem, but with the content farm update they figured out how to dial down a lot of junk hollow authority sites. They were able to replace "on-topic-ness" with "good-ness," according to the search quality engineer who goes by the nickname moultano. As part of that content farm update, they dialed up brands to the point where now doorway pages are ranking well (so long as they are hosted on brand websites).

Google keeps creating more signals from social media and how people interact with the search results. A lot of those types of signals are going to end up favoring established brands which have large labor forces & offline marketing + distribution channels. Google owns about 97% of the mobile search market, so more and more of that signal will eventually end up bleeding into the online world.

In addition to learning from the firehose of mobile search data, Google is also talking about selling hotel ads on a price per booking. Google can get a taste of any transaction simply by offering free traffic in exchange for giving them the data needed to make a marketplace & then requiring access to the best deals & discounts:

It is believed that Google requires participating hotels to provide Google Maps with the lowest publicly available rates, for stays of one to seven nights, double occupancy, with arrival days up to 90 days ahead.

In a world where Google has business volume data, clientele demographics, pricing data, and customer satisfaction data for most offline businesses they don't really need to place too much weight on links or domain names. Businesses can be seen as being great simply by being great.*

(*and encouraging people to stuff the ballot box for them with discounts :D)

Classical SEO signals (on-page optimization, link anchor text, domain names, etc.) have value up until a point, but if Google is going to keep mixing in more and more signals from other data sources then the value of any single signal drops. I haven't bought any great domain names in a while, and with Google's continued brand push and Google coming over the top with more ad units (in markets like credit cards and mortgage) I am seeing more and more reason to think harder about brand. It seems that is where Google is headed. The link graph is rotted out by nepotism & paid links. Domain names are seen as a tool for speculation & a short cut. It is not surprising Google is looking for more signals.

How have you adjusted your strategies of late? What happens to the value of domain names if EMD bonus goes away & Google keeps adding other data sources?

Who Needs Profits... When You've Got Good Rankings?

2011-03-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

Search engine marketing is an intense game of strategy, analysis, and patience. But, it's also a game with multiple, sometimes even conflicting, goals. Depending on who you talk to you, some will tell you SEO is about rankings, while others will tell you it's about conversions. It's a classic political struggle trying to answer the question, "what will bring in the greatest profits?"

You need exposure to get the traffic that leads to new business. But, you need to be user friendly in order to convert the traffic you're getting into new business. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

Anyone who has been optimizing a site for more than a week understands the value of getting strong search engine placement. Anyone that has had top rankings for more than a week also understands that bringing in new traffic that doesn't convert is pointless.

Why SEO is Like Government (and why government isn't like SEO)

SEO is a lot like government. No matter how many years we've been at it, there always seems to be more to do. And, like a good (or bad) law, we often don't see the effects right away. But, unlike government, SEO's analyze the results of their work. When a bad strategy is implemented, it gets repealed. Not very often is a bad law or government program withdrawn, regardless of the "unintended consequences."

Sigh.

But, I digress.

With SEO, there is almost always something that can be done to improve your site and your search rankings. But, after making specific changes, you must be patient enough to wait for the results of those changes. Then you can come back and compare the new results against previous results. This is the same whether you're making changes to improve your engine rankings or to increase conversion rates.

The changes you can make to your site are virtually endless when testing is involved. But, making too many changes too quickly, without testing and comparing the results, will almost always lead to a less than optimal marketing campaign.

Making Changes that Make Sense (and a lot of cents)

When you make changes without implementing proper tracking and testing procedures, you will often get both positive and negative results (or a combination of both), but you won't be in a position to pinpoint which of those changes were responsible for what results.

Let's say you made two changes to your home page, one was for rankings, the other for usability. If both rankings and conversions increase, you probably have performed two winning changes. But, what if rankings went up while conversions went down?

Simple, go back and undo the usability changes, right? Not necessarily.

It may be that your optimization changes improved rankings, but negatively effected usability, despite having made other usability changes. The usability changes you made may have actually resulted in a positive improvement, but that improvement was counteracted by the optimization changes that, while improving rankings, had a larger negative effect on conversions. Performing both of these changes at the same time makes it hard to pinpoint cause and effect.

Had you performed these changes separately, say the usability changes first, you might have seen an increase in conversion rates with little or no effect on rankings. The following week you would then make your optimization changes to find that your rankings went up, but your conversions dropped to levels lower than they were previously.

Now you know what to do! You undo your optimization changes, because, in this case, better rankings reduced conversions. Since you measured and tracked the results of each change, you can easily undo the change that had the greatest negative impact and then perhaps try something different to improve rankings.

Looking for opportunities to improve your site is an ongoing process. Every change and every test gives you valuable insight into what's working and what isn't. If you uncover a problem, you can't sit on your hands and do nothing. But once a "solution" is implemented, be patient and look to the results to see if it was a viable solution after all.

The Goal is Profits (not first page rankings)

In search engine marketing, there are often many goals: improve rankings, get more sales, increase conversions, drive more traffic, etc.

Profits can be achieved by improving rankings, getting more sales, increasing conversions, driving more traffic, etc. But, none of these is the goal itself. It is a means to the goal. Each of those paths can, and often do, intersect, and any of them can also lead you further away from your goal as well, if you're not careful

When I talk about getting more conversions for less money, I don't necessarily mean being able to spend less money, though that would be nice. But, getting more conversions for less usually requires spending more money, but paying less for each conversion.

Testing every change on your site allows you to keep making improvements in SEO, usability, conversions, etc. so that you can achieve your goal of getting each conversion at a lower cost than the month before. The way I see it, if marketing works the way it should, your marketing budget should always be increasing rather than decreasing, assuming, of course, that you can handle the increased business that the improvements continue to bring in.

Making sure you are using a measured approach to all your marketing efforts allows you slow, steady, and consistent growth in profits. When it's all said and done, it comes back to doing all that you can to improve your business, and measuring the results to make sure that what you're doing is working. Measuring only the end result without measuring the success or failures of the processes along the way will only result in a nice tasting goulash of a marketing campaign. Why settle for that when you can have the prime rib instead?

Google & Bing Have Whitelists – “Exception Lists”

2011-03-11T09:42:00.000-08:00

Google has long maintained that "the algorithm" is what controls rankings, except for sites which are manually demoted for spamming, getting hacked, delivering spyware, and so on.
At the SMX conference it was revealed that Google uses white listing:

Google and Bing admitted publicly to having ‘exception lists’ for sites that were hit by algorithms that should not have been hit. Matt Cutts explained that there is no global whitelist but for some algorithms that have a negative impact on a site in Google’s search results, Google may make an exception for individual sites.

The idea that "sites rank where they deserve, with the exception of spammers" has long been pushed to help indemnify Google from potential anti-competitive behavior. Google's marketing has further leveraged the phrase "unique democratic nature of the web" to highlight how PageRank originally worked.

But why don't we conduct a thought experiment for the purpose of thinking through the differences between how Google behaves and how Google doesn't want to be perceived as behaving.

Let's cover the negative view first. The negative view is that either Google has a competing product or a Google engineer dislikes you and goes out of his way to torch your stuff simply because you are you and he dislikes you & is holding onto a grudge. Given Google's current monopoly-level marketshare in most countries, such would be seen as unacceptable if Google was just picking winners and losers based on their business interests.

The positive view is that "the algorithm handles almost everything, except some edge cases of spam." Let's break down that positive view a bit.

Off the start, consider that Google engineers write the algorithms with set goals and objectives in mind.
- Google only launched universal search after Google bought Youtube. Coincidence? Not likely. If Google had rolled out universal search before buying Youtube then they likely would have increased the price of Youtube by 30% to 50%.
- Likewise, Google trains some of their algorithms with human raters. Google seeds certain questions & desired goals in the minds of raters & then uses their input to help craft an algorithm that matches their goals. (This is like me telling you I can't say the number 3, but I can ask you to add 1 and 2 then repeat whatever you say :D)
At some point Google rolls out a brand-filter (or other arbitrary algorithm) which allows certain favored sites to rank based on criteria that other sites simply can not match. It allows some sites to rank with junk doorway pages while demoting other websites.
To try to compete with that, some sites are forced to either live in obscurity & consistently shed marketshare in their market, or be aggressive and operate outside the guidelines (at least in spirit, if not in a technical basis).
If the site operates outside the guidelines there is potential that they can go unpenalized, get a short-term slap on the wrist, or get a long-term hand issued penalty that can literally last for up to 3 years!
Now here is where it gets interesting...
- Google can roll out an automated algorithm that is overly punitive and has a significant number of false positives.
- Then Google can follow up by allowing nepotistic businesses & those that fit certain criteria to quickly rank again via whitelisting.
- Sites which might be doing the same things as the whitelisted sites might be crushed for doing the exact same thing & upon review get a cold shoulder.

You can see that even though it is claimed "TheAlgorithm" handles almost everything, they can easily interject their personal biases to decide who ranks and who does not. "TheAlgorithm" is first and foremost a legal shield. Beyond that it is a marketing tool. Relevancy is likely third in line in terms of importance (how else could one explain the content farm issue getting so out of hand for so many years before Google did something about it).

Google are now block any Sites from Serch Results

2011-03-10T09:02:00.000-08:00

Google announced you can now hide or block certain sites from showing up in the Google search results.

When you do a search in Google, the search results will show a new link near the “Cache” link when you click a result and then return to Google. The link that Google adds to the search results reads “Block all example.com results.” Clicking on that will allow you to block the site from showing up in the Google results.

If you are not logged in, Google will immediately block the result and confirm they did so. But if you want the site to remain blocked on future searches, you have to login and confirm the block request.

At the bottom of the search results it will show you that there are blocked sites. It will let you show the blocked results or manage your blocked sites.

Here is the confirmation page:

Here is the manage block page:

You can access this page under your “Search Settings.”
Google said:

We’re adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalized and enjoyable experience on Google. In addition, while we’re not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future. The new feature is rolling out today and tomorrow on Google.com in English for people using Chrome 9+, IE8+ and Firefox 3.5+, and we’ll be expanding to new regions, languages and browsers soon. We hope you find it useful, and we’ll be listening closely to your suggestions.

Google launchs the Instant Previews for Mobile

2011-03-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

Google launched Instant Previews back in November. This is simply a feature that lets you see a preview thumbnail of a search result before you click through to view it. This gives you an idea of what it will look like at a quick glance, and gave webmasters another reason to make sure they are using an appealing site design.

Today, Google announced the launch of Google Instant Previews for Mobile (for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages).

“Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews, you can visually compare search results from webpage snapshots, making it easier to choose the right result faster, especially when you have an idea of the content you’d like to see,” says Brian Ngo, a software engineer on Google’s Mobile Search team.

“For example, if you’re looking for a webpage that has both photos and descriptions, you can use Instant Previews to quickly identify these pages by navigating across the visual search results with a few swipes of your finger,” adds Ngo. “Or perhaps you’re looking for an article, a step-by-step instructions list, or a product comparison chart—with Instant Previews, you can easily spot pages with the right content without having to navigate back and forth between websites and search results. And when the mobile version of a website is available, we’ll show you a preview of the mobile page.”

Just like with the desktop version, to see previews while you search, tap the magnifying glass icon next to results.

Google said upon the release of the desktop version of Instant Previews that people who use them are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click. Anything that helps improve your bounce rate has to be appreciated. Now, you just have to worry about making sure your previews are enticing.

SpyFu Recon : New tool announced by "SpyFu"

2011-03-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

SpyFu has announced their most recent tool named “SpyFu Recon”, it gives some essential organic keyword insight. For any given domain, the tool builds a huge report reflecting the domain keyword positions, changes and potential.

Let’s capture a swift look at what data is waiting for you inside:

1. Your Keyword Positions and Value – Visualized

Your SEO Dashboard consists of various visualizations of your keyword positions, clicks they drive and value they result in:

Amount of keywords in top search results
Number of unique pages that rank organically
Total organic clicks per month
Value of organic clicks per month

2.Your Biggest Gains

One of the most valuable section of the report is the one listing your most notable keyword standing changes: your most valuable gains in organic search as well as your most notable newly-ranked pages:

Biggest gains;
Most valuable keywords;
Newly ranked pages;
New keywords (You weren’t ranked on before);
Top site sections summary
Biggest opportunities (good keywords you are almost on top)
“Keywords Not Ranked On But Should Be” (keywords your direct organic competitors show up for on top but you don’t);
Keyword overlap in your SEO & PPC campaigns

3. Grouping Your Keywords

The awesome part is that the tool will categorize your keywords by the core term and create the report for keyword groups with the biggest gains: Apart from showing your already high-traffic keyword groups, the tool also lists “Keyword groups with high potential“.

4. Your Organic Search Competitors

The tool offers some very solid competitor insight:

See the list of your top organic competitors and their best keywords;
See keywords your competitors are good at (while you are not).

Overall, browsing the report turned out to be an amazing experience to me as I had a chance to discover some absolutely new and promising opportunities. That being said, I’d say the tool does a great job. I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Do you know the reason of Getting Banned on Google AdWords?

2011-03-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

With all that is going on in the SEO world, it is easy to forget that there are things that can illicit action from Google on the paid side as well. Many companies start AdWords Campaigns without reading the guidelines and that can cause many issues down the road.

There are four main ways to almost guarantee that your site will be banned from AdWords. In general, they boil down to two things: Lying and Harming Consumers. Google is all about what is best for the end user and the tactics below violate that.

1. Launch Campaigns for Your 10 Domains

You were able to purchase a keyword specific domain. Congratulations! You were able to nab 10 of them you say? Awesome, hope you have great content going up on those and using them in ways to target different users. Now your executives want to use the domains to dominate all of the ad positions. Easy right? Just use the new shiny domains and one account each.

Not right. It is against Google guidelines to serve multiple ads for one business. The actual words they use for what is NOT allowed is:

Ads across multiple accounts for the same or similar businesses
Ads across multiple accounts triggered by the same or similar keywords

This is what caused so many affiliates to lose their accounts a few years back. All they were doing was placing users to the main company site after a redirect on their site, or to a thin landing page that pushed user information to the same company. Both instances were bad user experiences for consumers.

2. Pretend to be Someone Else

Imitation is a form of flattery. Well not for Google.

You think you are the best, and want to tell searchers that you are better than XYZ. That belief is subjective and doesn’t fly in advertising.

In the same light as the last point, if you are trying to pass off as a competitor, you can be banned. In AdWords, you can bid on competitor names, but cannot use their name in the ad.

Keep in mind that this means any competitor names need to be in their own ad group. The ads cannot have dynamic keyword insertion in them. Make sure you aren’t inadvertently violating guidelines.

3. Sell Free Items

I cheated on this one; I looked at the guidelines for inspiration. If you want to be banned, you can always get inspiration for things to sell from conferences and the schwag they give away there. Those awesome pens … people want those, right? You can make a killing!

No. AdWords is not your ticket to a million dollars by using the funds of others. Cutting corners will mean being cut out of the program.

4. Infect user’s machines

The “end all, be all” of ways to get banned – hurt consumers in some way, or their machines. The ultimate in black ninja tactics. The next time you are in that bad of a mood, just step away from the computer.

6 Ways to Structure Your SEO Team for Success

2011-03-06T10:40:00.000-08:00

Whether you've just decided to start a search engine optimization (SEO) team, expand your current team, or are happy with what you've currently got, there's always a concern that there's a better way to deploy your existing resources in order to meet your business goals.

Below are six different structures that may work for your organization, depending on the size of your organization and your strategic direction.
1. Matrix / Embedded

The SEO team is structured in a hierarchical manner, with the members reporting up to an individual (director, VP, etc.) in the chosen department (usually marketing, but not necessarily). The team members are then embedded within other departments / sites where they dotted line report up to the management within that department.

The main benefit of this structure is that the SEO team member is often viewed as a member of that team, becomes a subject matter expert, and can use a built up rapport with that team to get work done.
The big drawback of this structure is that for it to work you need to have as many SEOs on the team as there are departments and sites (assuming there's enough work to be done to keep the SEO busy).

2. Centralized / Internal Agency

The other end of the spectrum is to have no embedding whatsoever. Under a centralized structure the SEO team can take work based on corporate prioritization of sites, or perhaps just on a first in, first out (FIFO) system, with the next SEO in line taking the next project to come up.

The main benefits of this structure are that sites that may otherwise not get the help that they need get it, and the SEO team can step back a little and work on the bigger picture unencumbered by loyalties to particular sites. You can also structure the team in such a way as to allow for specialization in particular areas (i.e., one member of the team handles SEO for all editorial content, while another handles architectural issues).

The biggest drawback is that you lose the ability to build and maintain a rapport between an SEO and the individual teams, as it may be a different SEO that works on different projects each time.

3. Direct Report

This is similar to the matrix structure, with the difference being that the SEO instead reports directly to the department / site, and is matrixed into the SEO hierarchy. This means the SEO isn't directly accountable to an SEO organization, but is instead measured by the goals of their department, which may not directly align with those of the SEO org.

4. Training Organization

If the SEO team is too small to handle the work that needs to be done within your company, then help needs to come from somewhere, and where better than from within your own organization? Set your SEO team up to identify advocates within each department (development / editorial / product) or site and train them up to act as an extended team.

It's a great idea to incentivize them and also to make them accountable for the SEO performance of the areas they work on. What's also great with this structure is that if you need to grow the core SEO team then you have an internal pool of applicants that you can pick from, rather than having to find someone on the outside.

5. Vendor Management Structure

If your team is small, and you have mission critical SEO work that requires far more resources than you have available, then there are plenty of SEO agencies that would only be too willing to work with you on whatever basis you need (project by project, retainer, etc). Just be prepared for your SEO team to spend some of their time on vendor management, as you'll have to have regular meetings, reviews, etc., in order for this to be successful.

6. Hybrid Structure

These structures aren't set in stone. You could potentially have some members of your SEO team focus on mission critical work, while having other members of the team identify and train up advocate for the rest of the organization. This may also give you greater flexibility in case one form doesn't appear to be working as well as others, you can then make the case for redeploying resources.

Whatever structure you decide is best for your organization, make sure that it's communicated effectively, so that everyone within your company knows what to expect and from whom. Only then will your SEO effort be successful.

Who are wasting Money on SEO??

2011-03-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

"Build SEO into Your Website, Don’t Slap It on Later"

A problem i encounter regularly is the firm that builds a beautiful website – and then, weeks or months later, decides it wants to do SEO. SEO is not website window dressing. It’s not something you can slap-on after the fact and expect to make your website like a well oiled, lead generating machine. Here are five common examples of how well intended, small and midstream firms fall into a money pit by failing to consider SEO up front, before their websites are under construction.

1. Patching Keywords into UN-optimized Content

Writing optimized site content requires a great deal of skill. You can’t just plaster keywords over existing, UN-optimized content and expect it to make any sense to a human being. Properly optimized content – i.e., content that impresses search engines and humans – must be woven into the fabric of every page.

If a firm decides to get serious about SEO after the fact, a complete content overhaul is frequently the best, if not only, option. However, firms are repelled by the idea of spending several thousand dollars for content development when the invoice from the website project is still warm: besides the cost, which is significant, the web development team risks appearing foolish. Upshot: the firm lives with mediocre or completely ineffective content until the next development project rolls around three or four years down the road. In the meantime, its competitors grab all the search traffic.

The proper path for SEO content is simple: Do the keyword research, connect appropriate primary and secondary phrases to each page of the site, and then and only then start writing.

2. Using SEO Unfriendly URLs

With many out-of-the-box content management systems you run the risk of creating SEO unfriendly URLs. A very common and simple example to consider is WordPress. With a basic installation, the default permalink structure in WordPress is structured to look something like:

http://www.abccompany.com/?p=123

A URL structure like that does nothing to tell search engines what the page is about. You’re missing out on the opportunity to include keywords in the URL. Instead, configure your URL structures to work in a more SEO-friendly manner. For example:

http://www.abccompany.com/internet-marketing/seo

There are two ways companies can get in trouble with URLs: first, by creating poor ones to begin with; second, by not using best SEO practices when attempting to fix them.

3. Building with Wobbly Site Architecture

Firms should consider site architecture and navigation from an SEO perspective before developing a website. Products and services need to be grouped together in a hierarchy that makes sense to search engines (and people, for that matter). If Google is unable to see how deep site pages are connected, it will not crawl the site thoroughly, rendering crucially important product and service pages virtually invisible for search.

Obviously, this can be a devastating problem, and one that can only be fixed through major website design and development changes. When we take on a web development project, our SEO team spends a lot of time working on the site map, and we will not move to the next phase until the site map meets all SEO requirements. Reason being, ongoing SEO efforts need a strong foundation to be successful. Site architecture is that foundation.

4. Using Plug-In E-Commerce Sites

In some industries, a firm can plug itself into a canned e-commerce site and instantly get in the game. The cost of this approach is ridiculously low compared to developing a custom e-commerce site internally. Here’s what firms don’t realize: the chances of the plug-and-play approach succeeding are also ridiculously low. Why? Because this type of site promises to make you virtually invisible to Google.

SEO problem number one: The content on the plug-and-pay site is identical to that of every other plug-and-play site. Since Google is looking for original content, it will ignore each and every page you have.

SEO problem number two: The canned sites do not allow subscribers to make significant (or any) changes to content or meta information that would render pages unique. In other words, you are locked into an e-commerce program that is guaranteed to be forever worthless from an SEO point of view.

There is a solution to the problem: starting over and developing the site the right way. Unfortunately, this is the last thing a firm wants to hear unless the site is already old and/or its lack of performance is clearly, painfully evident. Even then, firms will try every other marketing option under the sun before facing the financial music and launching a proper e-commerce web development project.

5. Going CMS-less

Content management systems are an SEO’s best friend. A good CMS allows companies to directly add new content, set up and manage meta information, and control many other aspects of site architecture that are critical to SEO performance. In this day and age, when CMS packages are flying off the shelf, it’s hard to understand why a firm would do websites the old fashioned way – by relying on an outside developer to execute (basic) onsite SEO activities. Problems with the traditional approach include:

The outside developer may have no clue about SEO
Site changes take forever to make
Site changes are headaches to manage because they seldom get done properly the first time around

Because of the cost, time and frustration, what usually happens is, the firm just stops updating its site. Is tweaking the anchor text to include new keywords worth $75? Are blog posts worth $50 a pop to upload and publish? The CMS-less firm boxes itself into a corner: either pay through the nose for SEO or skip SEO and wind up with a lovely site that nobody sees. I rarely see firms find a comfortable middle ground. The daily grind of going through a third-party to make routine SEO changes is too much to bear.

Why do firms fall into these traps? Let me count the ways.

Not understanding the value of SEO
Not understanding SEO
Having a DIY mentality and getting in over their heads
Relying on a web development firm that doesn’t understand SEO
Relying on an SEO firm that doesn’t understand web development
Relying on an SEO firm that doesn’t understand SEO
Budget constraints and unrealistic project timelines
Not having a marketing plan in place to support the new website

Very few lead generation and e-commerce websites can afford to underperform on Google. That’s why, sooner or later, sites get serious about SEO. It’s just that later is a lot more expensive than sooner.

Google Algorithm Changes will help pure sites to come up

2011-02-25T10:43:00.000-08:00

There has been quite a bit of noise about last week's 'farmer update' announced by Google. In a nutshell, the latest algorithm change aims the sights firmly at low quality sites that offer no unique content.

Google’s aim has always been to produce the most relevant results in the quickest possible time for its users queries and this latest update focuses on rewarding high-quality websites providing great content and lower the rankings of low-quality sites that are not useful or simply copy content from others sites.

Google claims that: “Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries”.

The early signs are that websites that simply strip content from other websites such as Demand Media and Mahalo will be hit hardest by the changes and websites like eHow and Answers.com could be penalised too.

Currently this update is only live in the U.S and looking at U.S forum discussions shows the general consensus is that profile links are being devalued. Therefore websites that have mainly profile back links, such as forum profile links, should be worried about these changes as they could see their rankings decrease.

On the official Google blog it states that these latest updates are not solely based on the feedback it received via ‘Personal Blocklist Chrome Extension’, but after analyzing the data it showed that 84% of a sample of the top-blocked sites were addressed by the changes.

Google says that it is “very excited about this new ranking improvement because we believe it’s a big step in the right direction of helping people find ever higher quality in our results.”

Google plans to roll out the changes worldwide over time, so it will be interesting to see if these changes make a difference to rankings when the update reaches the UK.