Via MattCutts:

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

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

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Janet Driscoll Miller does a great job explaining how to apply Google Authorship to multiple content formats like video and PDF documents.

Its important to apply Authorship to all the content you create in order build up your AuthorRank.

Via SearchEngineLand

“..which does Google seem to be relying on to infer authorship for a PDF – the PDF meta data or the PDF content itself or both? I tested this with an older PDF I had on hand that lists me as the author in the meta data but also lists the author as “written by Search Mojo” in the PDF body copy, therefore not showing an individual author. The meta data authorship alone did not cause Google to generate an…” [Continue Reading]

Fortunately, as shown in the image above, you can easily switch back to the single column view.

Via TheSocialMediaHat:

“Google+ has 41 new features and enhancements being rolled out starting today. The three main areas that were discussed at the conference were the Google+ Stream,Google+ Hangouts and Photos…” [Continue Reading]

I do like the new way you can “flip” through content with hashtags.

One downside to this, is that if your post date is super old on the “stickied post”, new visitors could mistake your blog for a ‘dead blog’. I mean, isn’t that what you think when you visit a blog and see their most recent post was 6 months back? With this in mind, sites that don’t include the date in their post and have information that isn’t time sensitive.

Download WP-Sticky and try it for yourself!

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In response all they said was, “heh, why would we do that? why would that be better?”

You just can’t help some people. You really can’t.

Via SocialMediaToday

“What many would consider a textbook position to put a call-to-action, high on the page, above the fold, may sometimes deliver substantially better results if placed lower down the page or after additional information to motivate a click has appeared first.

To understand this you need to appreciate the context of the decision you are asking your site visitors to take. If the buying decision is complex or needs to be carefully considered, today’s surfers are extremely tolerant of supporting information like comparison charts, videos and customer references. And so it really doesn’t matter where the final call-to-action sits, as long as the right amount of supporting information can be accessed easily and quickly to enable a decision to be made. Requiring a visitors to make a few downwards swipes or to hunt briefly for the buying button is no longer automatically a barrier to success. In UI design context is king…” [Continue Reading]

Here are a few of my favorites out of the 20:

“30% of US consumers use mobile devices for shopping. (Nielsen Mobile Consumer Report)

46% of consumers are unlikely to return to a mobile site if it didn’t work properly during their last visit. (Gomez)

27% of emails are opened on mobile devices (Sirona Consulting)

By 2014, one in four mobile phone users will redeem a coupon via a mobile device. (eMarketer)”

Click Here to read the full list of 20!

1. Hangouts On Air are broadcasted live on your Google + page, YouTube channel and anywhere else you decide to embed the code.

2. Hangouts On Air can have an unlimited amount of viewers but not all of them are active participants in the Hangout. All viewers are able to comment and watch the Hangout however. With a normal Hangout, only those participating are able to view the Hangout.

3. Hangouts On Air are recorded and uploaded to your YouTube channel so anybody can watch the replay. You can even download the recording, edit it on your computer, and upload back to YouTube or anywhere else you’d like host it.

Now, when scheduling a Hangout On Air event, it’s important that you select “Hangout On Air” and not the one that just says “Hangout“. There’s also a difference between “alert” and “invite“.

Ronnie Bincer explains why:

“Follow along this disaster scenario that I’ve seen happen more and more lately which inspired me to write this post to try to help out. You’ve got a Live Hangout Scheduled for three days from now at 10 AM. You finally got your highly acclaimed panel all scheduled and available at the same time (man was that a pain to set up, but it is finally set). So you create your Google Plus Event to alert the world that this once-in-a-lifetime HOA will be happening and tell them they really need to watch and enjoy the show.

You add in some nifty graphics and you even make up a teaser video to add to the Event invitation in order to improve conversions. You’re loving the fact that the Google Plus Events tool takes care of translating the time zones automatically for everyone. You are also loving the fact that when people respond to the Event Invitation with a “Yes, I’m Going” or a “Maybe” that they will be automatically alerted by Google+ one day before the event and again at the time of the event – Sweet!

All is good with the world. If you read my post about using Events to Alert the Public about your HOA you even know about the ability to paste in the embed URL at the proper time so viewers know exactly where to click to watch the show (or they can even watch it inside the Event Invitation via the ‘YouTube URL’ field).

Then the Mistake Happens!

Here it comes (whoops)! While creating the Event, you choose the logical choice for the Event Type called “Hangouts” since the thing you are inviting people to come attend is a Hangout, right? It is a logical choice, but it is wrong!

You don’t want people to “Attend” a hangout, what you want is to Alert them that the Hangout on Air Exists, and let them know they can sign up to be alerted and reminded about it when it is happening. But you did it anyways, you chose Hangouts as the Event Type. So here is what you did without realizing it…” [Continue Reading]

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Via Shaan Haider:

“Enable Google+ Comments on Any Website

1. Edit the template of your website and place this code in it at the location where you want the Google+ Comments to appear. You can even directly put the code inside a post as well. That is what I have done for Google+ Comments in this post.

Do not forget to replace the [URL] with the URL of your web page or blog post on which you are going to add the Google+ Comments. You can also use the width parameter to adjust the width of the comment box.

HTML Version

<script src=”https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”>
</script>
<g:comments
href=”[URL]“
width=”642″
first_party_property=”BLOGGER”
view_type=”FILTERED_POSTMOD”>
</g:comments>

HTML5 Version

<script src=”https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”>
</script>
<div
data-href=”[URL]“
data-width=”642″
data-first_party_property=”BLOGGER”
data-view_type=”FILTERED_POSTMOD”>
</div>

2. If you want to display a comments counter to show how many comments the post got, add this code in your template…” [Continue Reading]

 NOTE: There are a few reasons why you might want to hold off on adding Google+ comments on your WordPress blog. Jesse Wojdylo explains more in this post.

href="http://truewebpresence.com/how-to-enable-google-comments-on-any-site/"
width="600"
first_party_property="BLOGGER"
view_type="FILTERED_POSTMOD">

“Past getting listed, most SEO is bad SEO. White hat. Black hat.Because when you strip off the rationalizations, all SEO is trying to get something the content doesn’t justify..”

In other words, we have to realize that Google is in the business of providing quality, relevant search results for the user. If your SEO does not help Google to accomplish this goal, you’re working against Google and their business goals, which means you’re working a short-term strategy.

At the same time, if you focus on the content first, then make sure you’re hitting on at least one targeted keyword in your title as sort of an after thought, I don’t think you’re doing any harm and can only stand to benefit from increased search traffic. What do you think? Is all SEO bad?

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