Google Will Make This A Summer You Will Never Forget


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When we think of summer, we envision children playing in pools, beach BBQs and much-needed family vacations. But, for webmasters, the summer may become anything but bright, sun-filled and cheery. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team, released a video that details what Google is planning for the next few months. And although some of these changes may boost webmasters’ sites, anytime Google makes BIG changes, someone inadvertently loses their shirt. Should you be worried? According to Cutts, what he often states in many media outlets… if you create high quality content and a valuable user experience for visitors, you shouldn’t really be focused on Google’s changes and how they can impact your site. But, I am sure the thousands of webmasters who lost their rankings and their income after Panda and Penguin would beg to differ. The primary question asked of Cutts was, “What should we expect in the … Continue reading

A Smattering of SEO News: 5/20/13


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Hello, and welcome to the Smattering of SEO News for the week ending May 17th! There was even more than the usual amount of Google news in the last week, due to both the I/O conference and other newsworthy happenings, as well as some good news for Bing. Let’s get to it. Google News Matt Cutts Details Upcoming Google Algorithm Changes – In a  recent video, Matt Cutts detailed ten changes we would be seeing from Google in the coming months that would seriously affect SEO efforts. These include the next major version of Penguin (being labeled Penguin 2.0), a stronger stance against advertorials, stronger targeting of link spammers and a softening of Panda. We will definitely have to keep an eye out on these changes in the coming months. Polls Claim Only Small Number of Sites Recovered from Penguin – In an informal poll taken on Search Engine Roundtable, respondents were … Continue reading

A Smattering of SEO News – 5/13/13


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Hey folks, welcome to the Smattering of SEO News for the week ending May 10th. There was a lot of news from Google this past week, but also some search-related news from Yahoo, which we’ve not seen for quite some time. Enjoy! Google News Google Analytics Now Offers Real-Time Goal Conversion Report – Google Analytics now offers the ability to see real-time conversion goals, and can be sorted by number of conversions and drilled down to specific segments. Computed engagement goals aren’t available in real-time, however, and are still found in the standard reports. Possible Google Update Underway – According to webmasters on Webmaster World and elsewhere, they’re noticing significant shifts in the SERPS for their tracked keywords, denoting an update might be underway. Hopefully we’ll learn more in the coming days. Don’t Worry Too Much about Google Patents, Says Cutts – In a recent video, Matt Cutts said that … Continue reading

Extra! Extra! Read All About It… On Twitter?


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Where do you first hear about breaking news?  Your local news station? Twitter and Facebook? If you polled a cross-section of today’s “everyday” social media user, many would tell you that they hear about breaking news in one of two ways… 1. Twitter Feeds or Trending Stories – Twitter displays the top stories as they occur, or the stories that become the most popular whether via tweeting or re-tweeting. Here is a look at Twitter’s current trending topics as of 8:40 PST, May 7, 2013: Users watch this info intently waiting for popular topics to surface. 2.  Facebook News Feed – Facebook users read news from their friends’ posts in their newsfeeds. A quick “share” can spread this information rather quickly. Remember these top headlines? Quite a few headlines broke on social media sites before popular offline media outlets could even put pen to paper. Whitney Houston’s Death – Broke … Continue reading

A Smattering of SEO News: 5/6/13


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Hello, and welcome to the Smattering of SEO News for the week ending on May 3rd! We have quite a bit of news to go over for the last week, especially from Google, so let’s dive in! Google News: Google Hires Chief Game Designer – GamesIndustry discovered a new title on the LinkedIn page of Noah Falstein – who formerly worked for Parker Brothers, Williams and LucasArts – entitled “Chief Game Designer” at Google. It’s not clear as of yet why Google needs a Chief Game Designer, but hopefully we will find out soon. Google Acquires News Summation Service Wavii – Following a similar move by Yahoo — who purchased news summation service Summly in March — Google has purchased news summation service Wavii for $30 million, roughly the same price of the Summly purchase. According to the company, they will be “using our natural language research at Google in … Continue reading

A Smattering of SEO News: 4/29/13


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Hello, and welcome to the Smattering of SEO News for the week of April 22nd! Not as much news this week as last, but all of it’s interesting! Let’s dive in! Google News: Google Removed Related Searches Due to Low Usage – Many news sites reported that Google has apparently removed its “Related Searches” functionality from its search-type drop down on the results pages. When reached for comment on the removal, Google said the feature just wasn’t seeing enough usage to keep it on the toolbar. Google Fined €145,000 in German Street View Case – A German data protection authority has slapped Google with a fine of €145,000 for collecting data over WiFi networks, and Google has accepted the fine. Google said it never used the data it collected and didn’t want it in the first place. Google Penalizes Mozilla.org Over User-Generated Spam – Google penalized Mozilla.org, citing one blog … Continue reading