Can New Websites Rank Well?
The search engines grow more and more littered with new websites, web pages and more blog posts and articles than we know what to do with. How is a new aspiring website ever supposed to be able to break into the search results for any type of keyword phrase? Even third string keywords with much less search volume are becoming very tough to be visible for. This is why it is even more important to really focus on marketing and branding your business online and focusing much less on breaking into search results. Prime example on why all businesses need to take a slightly different approach when trying to market a new business online. The days of only focusing on ranking for search results are slowly CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Bing Gets Serious About Link Building
I think one of the best things I have ever heard a webmaster blog from a major search engine say is to build your website like a brand. Bing’s exact words state: “Develop your site as a business brand and be consistent about that branding in your content” To many people out there get all antsy to have their internet marketing look like a recipe. If it looks like a recipe it is a recipe for disaster. Bing’s official webmaster blog states that it is very important and vital to treat your website like a brand. How would a brand build its image? If you take that step you will build your business the right way rather than just go after rankings. Rankings are important CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google Predictions Video by Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts, the voice of Google search makes some interesting predictions for 2010 about websites in general along with Google search and what we can all expect to see during this year. One of Matt’s biggest concerns will be website safety and security. Matt Cutts expects to see much more hacking type activities occurring in 2010 and recommends that everybody has the most up to date security features on their websites so that nobody gets their fingers on your websites and do any harmful activities that could affect your livelihood. 2009 saw an uptick in websites getting hacked from a variety of new and strange sources and he expect this trend to increase for 2010. Don’t wait to secure your website when you get hit CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Is Google Quietly Tweaking Local Search
There is an interesting article on Web Pro News that discusses a significant change to local search when it comes to SEO and web design. Put simply, SEO and web design businesses are no longer appearing in local searches, at least, not for simple searches. I wrote about this last week as well, please read the post at the following link: http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2010/01/03/local-search-intent/ A search for "SEO Boston" is not likely to return any local search results. Add the word "in" - "SEO in Boston", and the local search results appear. While it is tough on web designers and SEO businesses, is there more to this than meets the eye? SEO consultants (and web designers) are easy targets when it comes to tweaking anything to do CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are You Ready For Some Caffeine?
Matt Cutts announced in early November that Google Caffeine would be available in one data center after the holidays. In other words, the new joy ride in search will begin in January 2010. But what exactly is Google Caffeine and how could it possible impact search engine optimziation? In August, when Google first introduced its beta-tested new search infrastructure, they announced that Google Caffeine would "let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions." Then Google began accepting test drives and feedback, but the site for that process has been taken down and replaced with a thank you message. So are you ready? I suspect that by the end of January (this month) - maybe even by CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Will You Use the Google URL Shortener Goo.gl?
I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but Google has launched its own URL shortener service called Goo.gl. Obviously, there are some pros and cons to this type of service. One drawback that I see is that the service is only available through the Google Toolbar and Feedburner. I can't shorten an URL directly like I can with other services like Tinyurl and Bit.ly. Secondly, Bit.ly offers tracking of your short URLs; Goo.gl does not (that I see). It would be fantastic if Goo.gl was integrated into Google Analytics and provided nice robust tracking for links shortened and used on social site such as Twitter and Facebook. Also, it would be great if these types of shortened links generated by Goo.gl CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google and Yelp Could Change Local Search
It looks like Google is about to acquire Yelp. No surprise, really. Is there a vertical Google hasn't made a purchase in? Two things happen when Google makes an acquisition in a vertical. A competitor comes along and outdoes them or Google develops the vertical into a profitable enterprise for itself. Notice I didn't say Google improves the vertical. Well, Yelp pretty much owns the local business review vertical. There are very few companies even competing over that space. So if Google does acquire Yelp it will be one more vertical the search giant owns by virtue of its bigness. That's not saying that local business reviews and local search will necessarily improve. But it will change. All the major search engines already have local business centers, CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google Sues For Trademark Infringement?
OK, here's a good one. You own the distribution model for paid-for advertising. You allow advertisers to spend money to distribute their ads through your network using your name. You even take their money. Then you sue them for using your name. That's what Google is doing. Suing advertisers who use the Google name in pay-per-click ads on Google. Wait a minute. With all of Google's fancy schmancy technology, they can't block ads that use the keyword "Google"? There's just something about this that doesn't seem right. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning the work-at-home scams. There are a ton of them. And using another company's good name to scam people out of their money using trickery, outright lies, deception, and other nefarious CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Are Yahoo Snippets Good As Google Snippets?
We've discussed Google's snippets before. But few people discuss Yahoo! snippets. Maybe the search community has written Yahoo! off as irrelevant? Regardless of what any of us think about Yahoo!, they are still a part of the search game. And I'd say a major part since they are still the second largest search engine around. Recently, SEO By The Sea wrote a blog post detailing a patent application regarding a method for selecting a snippet for a search page. Bill Slawkski, as usual, has some interesting insight. The gist of Yahoo! patent application boils down to three things: * A query-independent relevance for each line of text – a degree to which the line of text of the document summarizes CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google Caffeine is Launching Soon!
As I (and many other top SEO/SEM blogs) have been reporting since mid-August, the big "Google Caffeine" major algorithm update is coming very soon. According to Matt Cutts (Google's Head of Web Spam Department), the major Google Caffeine update will take place after the holiday season. To read Matt Cutt's blog post about the Google Caffeine update, please visit the following link: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-caffeine-update/ In case you are interested, Mashable did an analysis of possible changes that might be part of the update back in August here: http://mashable.com/2009/08/10/google-new-version/ Here is a very interesting video at the last Search Engine Strategies conference show with Matt Cutts about the Google Caffeine update: Also, here is more talk from around the web about what might happen: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2355684,00.asp http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10394059-93.html http://videos.webpronews.com/2009/11/11/googles-caffeine-live-at-one-data-center/ CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Will Bing’s Future Make Your Future Brighter?
Bing has announced that it's about ready to roll out its next generation of upgrades. And if you like Bing now, you'll love them tomorrow. If you're like us, you've paid attention to Bing's comeback this year as it introduced a real search engine that actually competes head-to-head with Google. The search results are stellar, the spam has been minimized and the addition of cool features like Twitter results and visual search have been most welcome. Bing promises to only get better and from the looks of things they just might deliver on that promise. To start with, the plans they have for travel search look more than promising. When I want to travel, I want to know fairly early on in my search for CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Can Google Protect Your Privacy?
I just found a very interesting interview between Neil Cavuto at Fox Business and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. They cover a lot of ground in this interview, but one interesting thing Eric Schmidt said was that Google is going to try not to cross the creepy line. He sees his company a lot like Microsoft, but he doesn't want to make the same mistakes that Microsoft made and which landed that company in hot water with the public. If you have some time, feel free to watch the interview with Google's Eric Schmidt: The topic of discussion during that segment of the interview was Google's new Dashboard feature, an information resource for consumers that privacy advocates are a bit leery of. It does beg the question, "How CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google Dashboard – Friend or Foe
The latest feature to come out of the Google Labs is one that seems to have drawn mixed emotions from many quarters around the web, called Google Dashboard. One report that I read recently about Google Dashboard claimed that the features 'exposes how Google controls your online life' - a little tough of a statement all things considered. Most people know that Google keeps a record of many of your online activities - but does Google control that activity? I think not. Google Dashboard, the name for the new feature, is just that a dashboard. You will be surprised at what information Google has but the information is only based on Google products. Not only that, there are options there for you to edit or CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Google’s New Local Business Center Guidelines
This morning we discussed Google's new page previews feature in the SERPs. Well, Google also introduced new guidelines for Local Business Center listings. These guidelines could affect you. Among the new guidelines for the Google Local Business Listing are as follows: Your Google Local Business Listing must match your full legal business name. This is significant because you can't keyword base your Google Local Business Listing listing. If your business name is Al's Italian Restaurant and your primary menu item is pizza, you can't include the word "pizza" in your title. It has to be "Al's Italian Restaurant." P.O. Box are no longer allowed for business addresses. This might actually be a good guideline for controlling spam, but it will also shut some legitimate businesses who CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
Does Google PageRank Still Matter?
One of the hottest all time search engine optimization debates online centers around the importance of Google PageRank. At one time, it was the holy grail of Internet marketing. Then link sellers started exploiting it for personal gain. A lot of marketers noticed and began to discount PageRank as a gamed system that no longer has any relevance. Google fought back by targeting link buyers and sellers, penalizing sites that engaged in this behavior. Personally, I think it was the right thing to do. Google has a right to protect the reputation of its ranking system and I respect them for doing that. Google PageRank has established some relevance again, but is it still worth it a metric? Titus Hoskins says yes. I actually like CLICK HERE TO READ MORE...
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