Study: Google Reviews Determine Local Carousel Rankings
Since the the launch of the Google “Local Carousel” in June, SEOs and marketers have been trying to reverse engineer the ranking variables that elevate listings into that hallowed ground. Mike Blumenthal offered a good early roundup of stories and analysis. Now Digital Marketing Works…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Study Shows No Clear Evidence That Google Plus Drives Ranking
At SMX Advanced, I presented results from a study we had done that convinced me that links in shares from Google Plus and Facebook behave like traditional web-based links. My statements at SMX Advanced were later disputed by Matt Cutts during his keyno…
Google’s Matt Cutts: Spammers Rarely Spam Using Multiple ccTLDs
In a recent video answer by Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, Google said that spammers rarely use multiple or mass number of ccTLDs in an effort to spam. This comment came from Matt Cutts when he answered a question on if it is duplicate content to have the same content on an IPv4…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
How Search Engines Work — Really!
For those of us in SEO (or aspiring to be), there are a lot of little details that fill our days. Server architecture, 301 redirects, 404 errors, title tags, and various other things. Sometimes, we forget to sit back and figure out what it all means. A…
Google Webmaster Tools Now Provides Broader & More Diverse Link Data
Google announced today that the link data within Google Webmaster Tools is much broader, more diverse cross-section of links. What does that mean? Well, instead of showing you links in alphabetical order, exported in “lexicographical order” – Google is now showing you sample links…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google: Unlinked URLs Are A Source For Indexing New Content
John Lincoln from Ignite Visibility spotted a Google Hangout where Google’s John Mueller confirmed that Google will use URLs or domain names within content that are unlinked, i.e. without an a href attribute, to discover and index new pages of content. John went on to add that typically no…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google’s Matt Cutts On What To Do If Your Site Was Hit By Panda
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts posted a new video today talking about the Panda update. The question he tried to answer was, “what should a site owner do if they think they might be affected by Panda?” Matt’s short answer to the question is to make sure to write…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Could You Walk In Google’s Shoes? Making Tough Calls With Search Listings
It’s pretty easy to sit back and slam Google for how you think it should make decisions when it comes to search listings. It’s much harder to actually make those decisions, when you have a deeper understanding of all the implications involved. To experience this better, here’s a…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google’s Cutts: Auto-Generated Content & Search Results In Our Index Violate Our Guidelines
In a recent video from Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, Matt discussed a pretty obvious spam tactic that Google will take action on. The question was Does Google take action on automatically generated pages that provide no added value? The answer is, yes. Of course, Google is not…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google Adds Automatic Authorship With Google+ Sign In
Google announced an even easier way to get your picture into the Google search results by adding automatic author attribution through Google+ signin. Google has integrated Google+ Sign-In with Google’s authorship program. Now if you sign in to WordPress.com with Google, the the articles you publish…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google’s Matt Cutts: Nofollow Links Won’t Hurt You Unless You Are Spamming At A Huge Scale
In a video released today on the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts said typically links that are nofollowed can’t hurt your rankings in Google. That being said, while most cases are that links that have the nofollow attribute on them will…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
How to Recover When Your Content Is Stolen
Last month, I shared a case study of a client I’m currently working with on a duplicate content issue. It turns out that this particular site had significantly lost rankings over the past year because of other sites “lifting” their content, often verbatim, causing the…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google May Be Updating Their Algorithm But They Won’t Confirm It
Today, September 4th and last week, August 21st, there were huge spikes in chatter amongst the SEO and webmasters about the Google search results shifting and changing. In short, many SEOs and webmasters were complaining that their rankings in the Goog…
Google’s Data Highlighter Adds Support For Book Reviews
Google has quietly added support for book reviews rich snippets with the data highlighter tool. Pierre Far from Google announced it on his Google+ page saying “you can now use Data Highlighter to tell us about pages on your site that have book reviews.” That means you can now mark up…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
What It Takes To Create A Winning Mobile SEO Strategy: 5 Questions With Humana’s Mobile Manager
According to a study conducted by Pure Oxygen Labs earlier this year, Humana was one of only six top 100 Fortune 500 companies whose website met Google’s mobile SEO requirements. In light of Google’s focus on mobile, mobile SEO is something all companies should be considering –…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Is PageRank Finally Dead? It Seems To Be, At Least In The Google Toolbar
Want to know what the PageRank of a page is? The ability to easily do this using the Google Toolbar has gotten harder over the years, with the latest blow being no update in values for the past six months. The Google Toolbar is how non-tech savvy peopl…
Your Small Web Site Not Ranking Well In Google? Matt Cutts Wants To Know About It.
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, asked last night via Twitter for webmasters and SEOs to fill out a survey on the topic of small sites and Google rankings. Matt Cutts asked “if there’s a small website that you think should be doing better in Google, tell us more here. The…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google Gets 5,000 Reconsideration Requests Per Week
Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts announced in a recent video answer that Google receives about 5,000 reconsideration request per week through Google Webmaster Tools. In January 2013, Google said they had taken manual action on 400,000 different web sites and averages about 5,000…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
How One Brand Switched A Million URLs & Lived To Tell About It: 5 Questions With HomeAdvisor.com
Last year, home improvement company HomeAdvisor.com underwent a monumental rebranding effort that included switching more than 10 million URLS from their previous company name to their new brand. With over $200 million in revenue at risk and thirteen y…
Report: Google’s Not Provided Reached 49% & Much Higher In Technology Industry
BrightEdge has released a report showing that for the 8,400 brands they tracked over the last quarter, 49% of the queries collected did not provide (i.e. not provided) search query data due to Google’s secure search. 49% was the average, in fact, it is higher for the technology industry….
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.