Link Building 101: 404 Pages & Link Reclamation

When working for clients (or starting fresh on your own site) one of the best things you can do at the beginning of a link building campaign is pull in a few quick wins. Too many people have been burned by shady SEO practitioners in the past, or link builders who just didn't deliver. My motto for launching a campaign is always "start at the start." You see, it's pretty easy (and tempting) to

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Hashtags Come to Google Search Results

The Google+ integration of hashtags is getting a nice updates with Google search. Google+ introduced hashtags on posts back in May, where users can click on the hashtags and get to other related posts on Google+ with the same hashtag. Google is now gone a step further by allowing those same hashtags to be used when searching in Google. Simply type in “#keyword” for the hashtags you want to sea

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Google Updates Android Search App; Teases New iPhone/iPad Search App

Google pushed out several updates to the Google Search app for Android 4.1+ users this week. The company also has revealed plans for a new version of the Google Search app for iPhone and iPad users. Google also announced a new look and feel for Google search across mobile devices. "It’s cleaner and simpler, optimized for touch, with results clustered on cards so you can focus on the answers

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Google Knowledge Graph Adds Filters, Comparisons

Google has added a new filter tool and comparisons as the search giant continues to expand its Knowledge Graph search results. The new tools aim to help searchers drill down deeper into topics or compare some key facts about two things side-by-side. Knowledge Graph Filters To illustrate its new Knowledge Graph filter, Google provided an example search for [impressionist artists]. A black

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Major Search Engines and Directories

Search engines – webmasters and search engine optimization (SEO) professionals follow their guidelines for the highest possible rankings on them; paid search marketers pay to be featured on them; and users turn to them when they're searching for answers, information, or entertainment. Search Engine Watch has been covering search engines since June 1997 and has watched the industry evolve to it

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How Will Voice Search Change SEO for Local Stores & Global Enterprises?

  In 2009 the authors of "The Art of SEO" predicted an increased importance in voice recognition search. Over the past few months, voice search has shown significant improvement and attention: Conversational search capability has come to desktop search, allowing searchers to refer seamlessly back to their previous searches. Nutrition information became readily available via voice search o

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Does Google Penalize For Invalid HTML? Matt Cutts Says No

It's easy to make a mistake when trying to create perfect HTML code that validates correctly every time. When one of the features in Google Webmaster Tools is the ability to validate your code to see if there are any errors, certainly it raises the question of how important it is to have validated code. While we all know the reasons why we should write valid HTML, in reality it doesn't alway

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Remarketing Lists for Search Ads: 4 Smart Strategies

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) have been available to all AdWords advertisers for several months now. RLSAs are really flexible. As a feature it opens up a lot of potential strategies. This article will look at some smart strategies evolving for different types of advertisers to give you an idea of what could work for each one. These aren't the only potential strategies for that cli

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Google Celebrates Birthday With Playable Piñata Doodle Game

Google officially turns 15 today. For the first time, the search giant is wishing itself a happy birthday with a playable Google Doodle in which you play as the lowercase "g" in Google's name and whack a piñata to score as much candy as possible. To kick off the game, click on the play button located on the 15th birthday cake. A star-shaped Google-colored piñata will appear, and the lower-ca

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Google Hummingbird Takes Flight: Biggest Change to Search Since Caffeine

Google quietly made a huge change to its core search technology in the past month, one that affects about 90 percent of searches worldwide. Calling it Hummingbird, the technological update of Google search is designed to handle more complex queries. Calling it the culmination of 15 years of work, the news was revealed by Amit Singhal, Google's senior VP, one day before Google officially cele

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