Latest From SNC

Breaking Down the Silos (Part 1)

apiwarun@gmail.com (Anthony Piwarun) — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:56:13 GMT

Whether you work in-house or in an agency setting, bringing alignment and synergy with functional groups outside of SEO will prove to be beneficial to not only your current campaign, but the efficiencies that you build now will help in future efforts as well. In an agency, we work with paid search teams, web analysts, developers, designers, copy writers and social strategists. In-house we may work with internal IT and design, PR, marketing, or agency partners. With the lines continually blurring year-to-year on the role of an SEO, we as digital marketers need to coordinate with other specialists and break down the silos to share data and move the needle. Paid Search Marketers When talking about synergies between SEO and any other type of creative, paid search marketers are perhaps the most the critical group to align with and share data. One such benefit would be actual keyword volume by analyzing impression count and impression share. When doing keyword research for organic...

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Fans, Ambassadors and Adjusting for Change

info@level343.com (Gabriella Sannino) — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:29:38 GMT

We marketers are a pretty predictable bunch, you know? I can't count, and this includes our own blog posts, how many times I've read something like, "Unless you've been living under a rock for the past…" What if somebody writes us back and says, "You know what, Ms. Know It All Marketer with your fancy schmancy blog post? I really HAVE been living under a rock, and I don't know jack-all about what you're referring to, so how bouts you shut up about my living arrangements and write something I can really use already?" Just saying… Another thing we're predictable about is new marketing lingo. Apparently, our industry isn't happy with calling a spade a spade… we have to call it things like "shovel" and "sticks with wings" and "hole-diggers". It probably has something to do with my theory that we're born with keytermitis. Fans Super Fans Fan Ambassadors One (I say "one" because I'm sure we've added a few since I started writing this post) of the many terms we're using is "ambassadors"....

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The iAcquire Affair; did D&Bcc get hit as well?

theGypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:32:19 GMT

Last week the big story was about iAcquire and some other agencies being knocked out of Google (de-indexed) for their role in the Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp affair. For those living under the proverbial rock, a blogger outed them for a series of communications seeking to buy a link on the behalf of D&Bcc and subsequent denial from same. Now, the question still remains; why did they take such harsh action against the marketing firms? As the story evolved, Danny mentioned a few firms referenced in a letter from D&Bcc – in doing a little research, here's their current state of affairs; InternetReach.org (not indexed) DigitalPros.org (not indexed) MediaFinders.net (seems ok) iOutReach.org (seems ok) LinkBuilder.net (not indexed) SolarPros.com (seems ok) Interestingly some of those sites have the same contact details, (InternetReach, MediaFinders and iOutReach) but at this time, aren't all de-indexed. One twist to this story, intimates that DigitalPros is...

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Introducing Microsoft So.cl: A Review

business@thelostagency.com (David Iwanow) — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:30:11 GMT

Microsoft Fuse Labs has taken a leaf out of the content curation craze that is powering growth in platforms like Pinterest that is focused around allowing users to share their search results with its new So.cl platform. So.cl has apparently been targeted at University and School students within the US, but not matching any of those requirements I had to only wait 24 hours to get my account approved. The concept of So.cl is fairly simple and follows Facebook’s; everything should be open and shared mentality. You can quickly discover a number of people interested in similar topics and begin to interact and curate your search results. Is It Another Social Stepchild? The So.cl platform does seem fairly close to a love child of Google+ and Pinterest but is a fairly fun platform to use and does allow for easy creation of collages on topics that interest them directly from the Bing search results. You have to remember that this is an experimental platform and is designed to overlay...

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Google Blows Your Mind With New Doodle

emailcheeksie@hotmail.com (Mike Clarke) — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:06:28 GMT

What would the eighties have been like without Robert Moog? Some may argue better, but what a waste of awesome clothing and hair it would have been... The inventor of the synthesizer, who would have been 78 years young today, is being celebrated today with what is arguably the coolest Google 'Doodle' to date: as fully functioning synthesizer with keyboard operable keys, workable knobs and switches for modulation, and a four-track mixer/recorder. Sweet. You can even grab a quick link to share your recording or upload right to your G+ account.Crazy, right? As you can see from the pic below, it's quite an intricate little toy. Check the one I made here, or don't(it's awful) (image credit: google.com)

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Google Introduces Webmaster Academy

mike@reliable-seo.com (Mike Clarke) — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:05:39 GMT

Google has a new tool available for small and medium-sized businesses who are new to website creation, management, and promotion. The Webmaster Academy is an online resource for those not familiar with more advanced techniques. Essentially, it is a step-by-step guide beginning with what search is and how Google works. It then moves on to building a site, creating content and optimizing for crawling. It also covers the basics of using Webmaster Tools, Google Places, and Google+. While obviously not of much use for anyone other than the true beginner, WA may play a significant role in encouraging more businesses to promote on the web, as well as get them them started on the right foot and hopefully help them steer clear of low quality content and spammy marketing tactics. Or at least get them educated before the wrong SEO's get to them. Fingers crossed... (image credit: google.com) Read more...

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Can your blogger outreach program be saved?

theGypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:47:45 GMT

Recently we talked about how the death of guest blogging (as a link building tactic) is surely on the horizon. It's worth saying again. In fact, if you're using any type of link building method du-jour, I'd consider planning for it's demise. You need to be pro-active and get ahead of the curve. From what we can tell response rates to outreach enquiries continues to drop. Keep in mind of course that we do things the RIGHT way. We don't email them about dropping a post (obstensively for a link). We seek to build new relationships in the blogging community. We offer to promote them via our social channels We offer them the opportunity to post on our blog We offer advanced notice of new items (from larger corp. Clients) We offer access to products to review In short, we take the approach of; what's in it for the blogger?. It is later in the relationship that we start talking about giving them some content now and again. And even from there, we spend staff time researching...

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Content Optimization: Conversion Issues

bharnish@searchnewscentral.com (Brian Harnish) — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:25:04 GMT

Are you having trouble with converting clients who arrive on your site? Oftentimes the issue can be low quality content, and simply not providing relevant information that aligns with what clients are looking for in their search. Here are some simple tips to help you get to the bottom of your content issues, and items to consider including in your content. It is so important to focus on the reader of the content rather than writing the content solely for search engine spiders. Resist the temptation to include keywords as every other word or focusing on the mythological “keyword density”. There is no such thing. Also, stop chasing the algorithm. That’s not going to help either, simply because Google is always updating the algorithm…every…single…day. So what things can you do in the meantime to ensure higher conversions and a higher quality website? Where to Focus You should certainly be focusing on your users and what they want to accomplish. So what does this involve focusing...

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Recovering from Penguin: More Than Just Backlinks

mwilton13@gmail.com (Mike Wilton) — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:23:50 GMT

There’s been a lot of talk about recovering from Google’s Penguin update. But everything I am seeing focuses heavily on backlink analysis and known webspam techniques. By now, I think most webmasters who got hit by Penguin recognize if they were hit because of their shady link building practices, but what about the sites that got hit simply because they suck at on page SEO? The Wrath of the Penguin I saw a handful of sites get hit by Penguin that I believe felt the wrath not because of links, but because of poor on page practices. The sites were microsites that were super focused on a particular topic and had very light link profiles made up of only a handful of links, none of which were paid or from spammy sources. What appears to have hurt these sites was the use of very topical, “over-optimized”, nearly synonymous content. 3 Onsite Factors To Look For Synonymous Content During our audit of each of the sites we found a number of similar factors. One of the most...

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Is Google Really De-indexing Free Directories?

terry@reliable-seo.com (Terry Van Horne) — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:54:01 GMT

Today Barry Schwartz reported on a WebmasterWorld thread in which an SEO had noticed that Google has started to purge their index of the free directory submission web sites. In the post Barry indicated a number of free Directories were being removed from Google's index. Below is an excerpt from his post. He said that about 50% of the free directory submission web sites are no longer to be found in Google. Barry added "I searched for a bunch and about 50% of my searches returned results and 50% did not". Directories that would be candidates for this kind of "draconian" action were as good as de-indexed ages ago. We sent out our super staffer Mike, with our vetted list of directories to see what he could find. From that (top end list) we found 65 no change, 2 domains parked and 1 de-indexed site; roughly 1.3% were de-indexed. Next we went to our friends at Steam Driven Media for the last 100 (based on TBPR) from a list of 1500. From this group we found 1 with low...

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Google's Algorithm Leaked! - A 'What If' Story

anthony.verre@gmail.com (Anthony Verre) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:41:05 GMT

As a kid, I read a lot of comics. And, to clarify “a lot”, we’re talking about boxes and boxes of comics, Marvel trading cards, piles of cardboard backings and plastic comic book protectors. Of course, let’s not forget stacks of attempts at duplicating Jim Lee’s X-Men, Sam Kieth’s Wolverine, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, and Rob Liefeld’s Cable. Right. I’ll say it for you: NERD. One of my favorite series was the “What if” collection, where an alternate reality is imposed on character, creating a new paradigm, and the “new” reality is played out. So, What if? The idea of alternate realities, new paradigms, is one that still intrigues me today. And, if it’s anything like the algorithm is bouncing around these days, we might just be in alternate reality now. It got me thinking, “What if Google’s complete algorithm is leaked?” What would SEO and Search Marketing look like? Would they still exist, would our profession even exist? The search geek and the comic geek in me couldn’t resist...

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Strange SERPs Could Be Penguin 1.1

mike@reliable-seo.com (Mike Clarke) — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:13:36 GMT

There is evidence today that Google may have updated Penguin. While there is no official word on the matter, there have been talks of strange SERP activity, as well as claims of recovery by some folks who were hit late in april by the algo update. There is a clear indication that something's going on, due to the action that started yesterday. Whether it's 'Penguin 1.1' or not is another matter. Whether this is a retooling or refreshing of the algo update will matter little to any of you who felt the wrath of the Penguin and have yet to recover. Chances are, as is usually the case, that this is nothing to get too excited about, but we'll keep an eye on it for you folks. For more details, see the seo round table report from this morning. Update: Google has released notification that no algorithm updates have taken place, Penguin or otherwise.(5/14/12 2:15pm) Read more...

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The Art of Google Link Building

terry@reliable-seo.com (Terry Van Horne) — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:06:58 GMT

The aftermath of the Over Optimization Penalty which is Googleze for link building with exact match anchor text and Panda's machine learning algo assigning Quality Scores to sites and most link builders are scratching their heads wondering what techniques are still effective. The conundrum for link builders is links are definitely under scrutiny and adding further to it is the overall de-emphasizing of the linkgraph by adding other signals like the socialgraph, Universal SERPs and freshness. Add to that a barrage of Unnatural Linking Messages in Google Webmaster Tools a couple of huge spam networks de-indexed and you have SEO's panicking like no other time since the Florida Update! Yes guest blogging, curation sites and other advanced link targets can take the place of some of the low level foundational link building. The good news is the spammers selling 1000's of comments and reviews at $1.380 are likely now selling Social profile and other useless services which...

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Google’s ‘Free Speech’ Antitrust Defence

barry.adams@gmail.com (Barry Adams) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:52:44 GMT

A new research paper published by a 'prominent First Amendment scholar' Eugene Volokh, paid for by Google, apparently shows that Google's search results are protected under the USA's First Amendment laws as 'free speech' and are thus not susceptible to antitrust legislation. As per Search Engine Land's article on the paper: The 27 page document replete with case law citations, can be summarized in one sentence: search engine results are editorial judgments, like newspaper content, protected by the First Amendment and thus precluded from being regulated by antitrust law and the US government as protected speech. So in effect this research is Google's 'get out of jail free' card, giving them free reign to do whatever they want with their search results, including putting their own properties first and generally abusing their SERPs in any way imaginable to give themselves an advantage and deny suppliers of competing services appropriate visibility in Google's search results. This is...

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Washington Post Knows the Value of SEO Friendly

theGypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Thu, 10 May 2012 02:33:27 GMT

I was sitting here contemplating how far I would make it before collapsing into a pile of dust after a long few days... weeks... months (lost track really). Then a little something popped up on the radar, in this case from one of my many Google Alerts. It seems that the fine folks over at the Washington Post were playing with some things, that seemingly got indexed when it probably shouldn't have. You can find it here, but in case it get's nuked by the time you're reading this, here's a screen shot; Of course it's not entirely newsworthy I suppose, but it is a great reminder that Google will index and return just about anything, so one needs to be a little more careful. And hey, if Google seemingly dislikes them SEO tactics, maybe ya don't want to advertise the fact it's something you test. Just sayin'. Especially when yer getting syndicated/scraped a lot... have a look-see at this SERP. So popular it even got a News Universal (rofl). It also might help those spewing the...

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SEO Excuse #143; The other guy is doing it, so it must work

theGypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:56:46 GMT

So my friends... here we sit. After many a Google update it seems people are starting to get it. But it shouldn't be that way. There are some folks out here that, deemed Google-fan boy or not, kept talking about higher quality approaches. Avoiding the low road. That quality and strategy would ultimately trump cheap and easy. Of course nobody (in the SEO world) listens. Why? Because cheap and easy is working. Just look what the other guy is doing. He ranks. Uh huh. Entirely believable since most SEOs you meet are certainly smarter than a Stanford trained search engineer. Right? Uh huh. The sadder truth is that most in the industry that pay attention even a little, always felt that many of the tactics wouldn't last. The older ones, knew it wouldn't, because history is a great teacher. But the attitude prevailed. But look at this! “Have you seen this SERP!!!”, seems to be making the rounds a lot these days. Uhm, not sure I get the point. Yup, Google ain't perfect. But it's the...

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New Google Doodle For Tut's Tomb Discoverer Howard Carter

mike@reliable-seo.com (Mike Clarke) — Wed, 09 May 2012 11:51:30 GMT

A new Google Doodle today celebrates the 138th birthday of Archeologist Howard Carter. Born May 9, 1874, Carter rose to fame when in November 1922 he discovered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun, the most intact tomb of any Pharaoh in Egypt. His extensive research and coverage of the treasures of Tut's tomb are credited with the world-wide intrest in Egyptology, or Egyptomania. Howard was honoured today by Google in their latest 'Doodle', which features Carter amongst the treasures of his discovery in the forground and a large Google logo in the background. Unfortunatly, there are no fun animations this time. It could have been fun to have Tut come out of the sarcophagus, scaring Carter away, or perhaps doing a Glee-style song and dance routine. Oh well. Pic courtesy of Google

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Google Webmaster Tools Gets a Fresh Look

terry@reliable-seo.com (Terry Van Horne) — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:44:53 GMT

Google Webmaster Tools announced an update to their interface today! The new dashboard is pretty cool giving you a quick overview of the site pulse with what looks like pretty new graphs too! There were not a lot of changes except for HTML Suggestions became HTML Improvements, however the functionality remains the same and the dashboard is a nice enhancement. Personally I don't remember seeing Health as an option, seem to remember Diagnostics used to hold those same items as Health. Anyone who manages a large number of sites can view site-list in a compact layout, without preview thumbnails which I guess is kinda' cool as well. Below is how the Googly described the changes in the left Margin: Google's Team regrouped the left margin along Configuration, Health, Traffic and Optimization. Each group represents a related set of functionality: Configuration: Things you configure and generally don’t change very often. Health: Where you look to make sure things are OK. ...

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Google Throws Analytics Users a Bone: Social Reports

mike@reliable-seo.com (Mike Clarke) — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:46:58 GMT

Ilya Grigorik, of Google's analytics team, has announced the introduction of Social reports. Based on the decade-old concept of Trackbacks, which Google uses in crawling to track referencing links, Social reports will alllow Google analytics users to build a reliable link graph that will help them track backlink URL's, post titles and more. "These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content." - Ilya Grigorik Knowing which pages and content are helping drive traffic will certainly help website and blog owners understand what it is Matt Cutts and Google mean by "good content", but it will also help them understand what their audience is linking to and sharing, and the kind of content worth reproducing.

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Latest Google Algo Updates; April 2012

theGypsy@huomah.com (David Harry) — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:13:49 GMT

Given the madness that has gripped the SEO world over the last few months I felt it was time I started publishing some highlights and insights into the monthly Google blog posts on search quality updates. Up until now I have generally just posted them over on the SEO Training Dojo forums. So let's give it a go shall we? What can we learn from the latest updates? After the recent SQ update announcement, a lot of chatter we've seen tries to (as usual) make the connection between major updates, such as the recent Penguin one, and these weather reports. This isn't generally the case though. For the most part there really isn't anything one could relate beyond this one; Keyword stuffing classifier improvement. [project codename "Spam"] We have classifiers designed to detect when a website is keyword stuffing. This change made the keyword stuffing classifier better. We do know this was a target. Was it really part of the Penguin or just another secondary...

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