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On Friday, October 4th, Matt Cutts announced the release of Penguin 2.1. Based on the amount of Penguin work I do, that meant one thing. Matt just threw a serious wrench into my Friday night (and weekend plans). Similar to previous Penguin updates, I began heavily analyzing websites hit by Penguin 2.1 to identify new findings and insights.
Needless to say, the past two and a half weeks have been fascinating, as I’ve now dug into 36 sites hit by Penguin 2.1. This latest update has definitely left a path of destruction across both large and small websites, from around the world.
A Tale of 3 Penguin Victims
This post is designed to give you a peek behind the curtains, into the world of Penguin. I will focus on three different websites, with three different outcomes.
The first story is a happy one, as I’ll explain more about a company that recovered during Penguin 2.1. The second company unfortunately took it on the chin, and twice. They were first hit by Penguin 2.0, only to get hit harder by 2.1. The third represents an all-too-common example of a company not understanding what its SEO agency was doing, and was blindsided by a Penguin 2.1 hit. Let’s begin.
1. Penguin 2.1 Brings Recovery
I know there are a lot of people that don’t believe websites can recover from Penguin. But they can; I’ve written several case studies about those recoveries in case you want to learn more. Once Penguin 2.1 hit, I quickly started reviewing the reporting of previous Penguin victims to see if there was any impact from our refreshed, icy friend.
During this most recent update, two websites I’ve been helping with Penguin hits recovered. I’ll focus on one of those sites in this post. While analyzing the site’s reporting, I saw a distinct bump in Google organic traffic starting on Friday, October 4th and increasing during the weekend. Note, this was a client with multiple issues, and was hit by both Panda and Penguin (historically). That’s actually a common scenario for a number of the companies contacting me. For this company in particular, I helped them identify technical problems, content issues, and link problems, and they have worked hard to rectify their issues.
A Penguin Recovery During the 2.1 Update:
The company was originally hit by a previous Penguin update, but delayed tackling their link issues as they worked on technical problems and content issues. If you know how I feel about the gray area of Panda or Penguin, I always feel you should move as quickly as possible while maintaining focus in order to recover from algorithm hits. The reality, though, is that not every company can move at light speed.
This company was no different. They had seen improvements from technical fixes and content work, and finally started to address Penguin over the past few months (after Penguin 2.0 rolled out). Unfortunately, Penguin was inhibiting their growth, even if they had showed signs of progress based on other SEO work.
During late spring and summer, unnatural links were removed as much as possible, while links that could not be manually removed were disavowed. By the way, that’s the approach I recommend. I’m not a big fan of disavowing all bad links, and I never have been.
Based on links downloaded from Google Webmaster Tools, Majestic SEO, and Open Site Explorer, the company tackled its unnatural link situation the best it could. Now they just needed another algorithm update to see if their hard work paid off. I recommend to any company hit by an algorithm update that they should keep driving forward as if they weren’t hit. Keep producing great content, keep leveraging social to get the word out, keep building natural links, etc.
When October 4th arrived, a spike in organic search traffic followed. The site’s Google organic traffic was up 43 percent following Penguin 2.1 (and up 67 percent to the specific landing pages that had been impacted heavily by the previous Penguin hit). The filter had been lifted and the site was being rewarded for its recovery work.
Key Takeaways:
- Move quickly and keep a strong focus on what you need to tackle link-wise. Although this company recovered, it delayed its Penguin work for some time (and the negative impact remained).
- Be thorough. Don’t miss links you need to nuke. Penguin is algorithmic and there is a threshold you need to pass.
- Remove as many unnatural links as you can manually, and then disavow the rest. Avoid the knee-jerk reaction to disavow all of them.
After your Penguin work has been completed, keep your head down and drive forward. Act as if you aren’t being impacted by Penguin. You’ll send the right signals to Google throughout the downturn in traffic.
2. A Penguin 2.0 and 2.1 Combination Punch
The second example I wanted to explain was an unfortunate one-two punch from Penguin. You wouldn’t think a Penguin can pack a combination punch, but it has in several situations I’ve analyzed recently (where companies reached out to me complaining of a Penguin 2.1 hit, after a Penguin 2.0 hit.) And worse, this was after thinking they addressed their unnatural link problem thoroughly.
After getting pummeled by Penguin 2.0 on May 22nd, the company gathered its troops, thought they identified all of their unnatural links, and worked hard on removing them. After what seemed to be a thorough cleanup, they eagerly awaited another Penguin update. When Penguin 2.1 was announced by Matt Cutts, they watched their reporting with intense focus, only to be thoroughly disappointed with the outcome. They got hit even worse.
The Initial Penguin 2.0 Hit:
The Second Penguin Hit on Oct 4th:
So what happened? Quickly reviewing the site’s link profile revealed a problem: companies put a stake in the ground and remove as many unnatural links as they can at a given point in time. They don’t continue analyzing their links to see if more unnatural links pop up and that’s a dangerous mistake. I saw many unnatural links in their profile that were first found during the summer and fall of 2013. Many showed up after their Penguin work had been completed. Those links are what got them hit by Penguin 2.1.
Fresh Unnatural Links Caused the Penguin 2.1 Hit:
The combination punch I mentioned above is a strong reminder that Penguin never sleeps. Don’t assume you are done with your link removals because you have a spreadsheet from a few months ago. You need to continually review your link profile to identify potential problems. If this company had done that, they would have picked up many additional unnatural links showing up this summer and fall, and dealt with them accordingly. I believe if they did, they could have avoided the nasty one-two punch of Penguin.
Key Takeaways:
- Your Penguin work is ongoing. Don’t drop the ball.
- Have your SEO continually monitor your link profile for unnatural links (whether that’s an internal SEO, agency, or consultant).
- The one-two punch of Penguin is killer (and can be backbreaking). Avoid multiple algorithm hits. They aren’t fun to live through.
Unnatural links have an uncanny way of replicating across low-quality sites and networks. I have clearly seen this during my Penguin analyses. Beware.
3. A Fresh Hit, Care of a “Trusted” Third Party
In April, I wrote a column titled Racing Penguin, where I explained an unnatural links situation that looked like negative SEO. However, it ended up being a “trusted” third party that was assisting a company with its marketing efforts. Unfortunately, that situation is all too common, as businesses outsource SEO and aren’t tracking what those third parties are doing.
After Penguin 2.1 was released, I received a call from a business owner blindsided by the latest update. After showing the business owner many of the unnatural links impacting the website, he was blown away. He made it very clear that he never set up those links.
I took him through a process I normally take blindsided Penguin victims through to try and determine how the links were set up. I also explained that I’ve been contacted about negative SEO many times since Penguin 1.0, but it almost always ends up not being negative SEO. The trail typically leads to someone connected to the company (and a high percentage of those people had the right intentions, but the wrong execution).
A Penguin Hit Timeline Can Bring Answers:
That was the case for this business owner. He contacted several people who had helped him in various capacities over the past few years, but one vendor came back with a quick and affirmative response. As it turns out, the business owner hired an agency to help with SEO and they began a linkbuilding campaign. They built links all right… just not the ones a business owner wants to build. The links were Penguin food, plain and simple.
The business owner was left trying to clean up the Penguin mess. Instead of running his business, he’s dealing with link exports from various tools, contacting webmasters, and getting familiar with the disavow tool. Yes, this business owner is getting a Masters Degree in Penguin Sciences.
How to avoid this situation? My advice is the same as it’s always been. Know who you are hiring and what they will be doing; get it in writing and make sure you know what has been completed. Ask hard questions, get clear answers, and keep the pulse of your website. Algorithms like Penguin and Panda can cause serious damage to your business, as Google organic traffic can plummet overnight. Then you’ll have months of hard recovery work ahead. Avoid this situation at all costs.
Key Takeaways:
- Thoroughly vet the SEO agency or consultant you are planning to hire. Don’t get caught hiring a company that makes your situation worse. That’s not the point.
- Know what your agency or consultant will be completing for you, and get that in writing.
- Communicate with your SEO agency or consultant on a regular basis to receive updates on the projects being completed. Ask for written updates, screenshots and examples as the projects continue. Don’t get caught at the end of the project with lingering questions.
- When you see an increase in rankings, ask why that’s happening. Try to understand the tactics being used to impact SEO. Unfortunately, there are some tactics that cause short-term gains only to cause serious, long-term problems.
Take the initiative to review your own SEO reporting to better understand what’s going on. Learn your way around Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and link analysis tools like Majestic SEO and Open Site Explorer. You might be able to nip serious SEO problems in the bud.
Summary: Penguin 2.1 Bringeth and Taketh Away
I hope these three examples provided a view into the world of Penguin. In my opinion, Penguin 2.1 was bigger and badder than Penguin 2.0. The good news is that not every site was impacted negatively. There were recoveries. Though they’re often overshadowed by the destruction, it’s important to know that Penguin victims can recover. It just takes a lot of hard work for that to happen.
If you’ve been impacted by Penguin 2.1, you need to download and analyze your inbound links, flag unnatural links, remove as many as you can manually, and then disavow what you can’t remove. As I mentioned in the second case above, don’t stop analyzing your links once the initial phase has been completed. Continually monitor your link profile to make sure additional unnatural links don’t appear. Remember, another Penguin update might be right around the corner. Good luck.
Google pays homage today to Celia Cruz, a Cuban-American entertainer who reigned as the “Salsa Queen” to adoring fans worldwide. A singer and dancer, Cruz made many gold albums and won several Grammy Awards during her time as an entertainer. She died at the age of 77 in 2003.
Cruz grew up in Cuba but moved to the United States, where she resided in New Jersey for the majority of her life. Cruz was reportedly interested in singing at an early age, but her father wanted her to stay in school to become a teacher.
However, Cruz had different plans. In her twenties, she joined a Cuban orchestra as their lead singer. “Café con Leche” was the name of the group that made Cruz famous. Under this name, she and her team of musicians toured for many years.
Cruz performed her entire life and said of retirement: “It is absolute death, and I’m not talking about artists, because some performers change the focus of their career … I believe inactivity is a cancer in the soul… I’ve always thought that I’ll retire when God takes away my abilities… like Miguelito Valdez, I want to bid farewell to life while on stage.”
Today on her birthday, the official site for Celia Cruz is opening up the stage to her fans, asking them to post a photo, video or message on social media using the hashtag #dearcelia.
Original Article Post by
Jessica Lee @
Search Engine Watch
The last few weeks have been amazing. Google has made some big changes and they are all part of a longer term strategy that has many components.
In short, Google is doing a brilliant job of pushing people away from tactical SEO behavior and toward a more strategic approach.
You could argue that "tactical SEO is dead", but that's not quite right. And don't run around saying "SEO is dead" because that is far from the truth, and I might just scream at you.
Instead, let's take a few steps back and understand the big picture. Here's a look at the major developments, some of Google's initiatives driving this change, and the overall impact these changes will have on SEO.
1. '(Not Provided)'
Google made the move to make all organic searches secure starting September 23. This means we've lost the ability to get keyword data for users arriving to our websites from Google search.
Losing Google keyword data is sad for a number of reasons. This impacts publishers in many ways, including losing a valuable tool for understanding what the intent of customers that come to their site, for conversion optimization, and much more.
For tactical SEO efforts, it just means that keywords data is harder to come by. There are ways to work around this, for now, but it just won't be quite as simple as it used to be.
2. No PageRank Update Since February
Historically, Google has updated the PageRank numbers shown in the Google Toolbar every 3 months ago or so, but those numbers haven't been updated since February. This means 8 months have gone by, or two updates have been skipped.
In addition, Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has said Toolbar PageRank won't be updated again this year, leading many to speculate that PageRank is going away. I won't miss it because I don't look at PageRank often and I normally don't have a Google toolbar in my browser.
However, a lot of people still use it as a crude measurement of a site's prominence.
For sites with a home page that has PageRank 7 or higher, it may in fact be reasonable to assume that the site has some chops. Correspondingly, sites with a home page that has a PageRank of 3 or lower, it is either new, or probably a low quality experience. Stuff in the middle, you just don't know.
If Google shuts off this data flow entirely, which wouldn't be surprising, then they will have to rely on other real world (and better) measurements instead. This would actually be better than using PageRank anyway, because Google says they don't use it that way themselves, so why should we?
3. Hummingbird
There are a few elements to Google's Hummingbird algorithm, announced in time for Google's official birthday, but like Caffeine before it, this is really a major platform change. Google has built a capability to understand conversational search queries much better than before.
For example, submit a query to Google such as "show me pictures of Fenway Park", and it does:
Then you can follow that query with this one: "who plays there", and you get this result:
Both of these show conversational search at work (but note that the Boston Beacons folded in 1968 after just one season, so that is an error in that result – shows that they have much work to do!).
Hummingbird really changes the keyword game quite a bit. Over time, exact keyword matches will no longer be such a big deal.
The impact of this algorithm is likely to be quite substantial over the next 2 or so years. Net-net, they have drastically reduced access to the raw data, and are rolling out technology that changes the way it all works at the same time!
4. Google+
OK, this one isn't new. Google launched Google+ June 28, 2011.
While it seemed to get off to a slow start initially, many argue that it has developed a lot of momentum, and is growing rapidly. The data on Google+'s market share is pretty hard to parse, but there are some clear impacts on search, such as the display of personalized results:
In addition, you can also see posts from people on Google+ show up in the results too. This is true even if you perform your search in "incognito" mode:
And, while I firmly believe that a link in a Google+ share isn't treated like a regular web link, it seems likely to me that it does have some SEO value when combined with other factors
.
How Google+ fits into this picture is that it was built from the ground up to be a content sharing network that helps with establishing "identities" and "semantic relevance". It does this quite well, and in spite of what you might read in some places, there is a ton of activity in all kinds of different verticals on Google+.
5. Authorship
OK, authorship also isn't new (launched on June 7, 2011), but it is a part of a bigger picture. Google can use this to associate new pieces of content with the person who wrote it.
Over time, this data can be potentially used to measure which authors write stuff that draw a very strong response (links, social shares, +1s, comments) and give them a higher "Author Rank" (note that Google doesn't use this term, but those of us in the industry do).
We won't delve into the specifics of how Author Rank might work now, but you can read "Want to Rank in Google? Build Your Author Rank Now" for my thoughts on ways they could look at that.
That said, in the future you can imagine that Google could use this as a ranking signal for queries where more comprehensive articles are likely to be a good response. Bottom line: your personal authority matters.
I also should mention Publisher Rank, the concept of building a site's authority, which is arguably more important. Getting this payoff depends on a holistic approach to building your authority.
6. In-Depth Articles
Google announced a new feature, in-depth articles August 6. You can see an example of this here:
The Google announcement included a statement that "up to 10% of users' daily information needs involve learning about a broad topic." That is a pretty big number, and I think over time that this feature will become a pretty big deal. Effectively, this is an entirely new type of way to rank in the SERPs.
This increases the payoff from Author Rank and Publisher Rank – there is a lot to be gained by developing both of these, assuming that Google actually does make it a ranking factor at some point. Note that I wrote some thoughts on how the role of in-depth articles could evolve.
Is There a Pattern Here?
Yes, there is. The data they have taken away has been historically used by publishers to optimize their SEO efforts in a very tactical manner.
How do I get higher PageRank? What are the keywords I should optimize for? Taking these things out of the picture will reduce the focus on these types of goals.
On the other side of the coin, the six major Google changes listed above are all moves that encourage more strategic behavior. Note that I didn't bring up Google Now, which is also a really big deal too, and it's another big piece of the Google plan, just not a major driver of the point I'm trying to make today.
All of these new pieces play a role in getting people to focus on their authority, semantic relevance, and the user experience. Again, this is what Google wants.
For clarity, I'm not saying that Google designed these initiatives specifically to stop people from being tactical and make them strategic. I don't really know that. It may simply be the case that Google operates from a frame of reference that they want to find and reward outstanding sites, pages, and authors that offer outstanding answers to user's search queries. But the practical impact is the same.
The focus now is on understanding your target users, producing great content, establishing your authority and visibility, and providing a great experience for the users of your site. Properly architecting your site so that the search engines can understand it, including using schema and related markup, addressing local search (if that is relevant to you), and work of this type still matters, too.
But, the obsession with tactical items like PageRank and keywords is going to fade away. As Google tweaks the way their service operates, and look for ways to capture new signals, they do things that naturally push you in that direction. It isn't going to stop. Expect more of the same going forward!
Original Article Post by
Eric Enge @
Search Engine Watch
You wondered if you should just throw in the hat when it comes to trying to rank in organic search results and maybe spend more time on other avenues of traffic generation, such as social media leads or pay per click? This is actually the topic of the latest Google webmaster help video from Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts.
Since Google is been actively updating its search results, it is hard for people to trust Google anymore. Should one start focusing on getting leads from social media other than search engine results?
Google will constantly be upgrading its algorithm, Cutts said. It's never going to be complete, they will continue to update it as spammers find new ways to rank and as they integrate new signals or change the weight of those signals in the algorithm.
Cutts added that since the start of the summer (when this particular video was filmed) Google has been trying to make it even harder for spammers to rank from black hat techniques.
"So we are always going to be updating, always going to change things to make things better, always trying to innovate the way that we record search algorithms, that's just the nature of the beast," Cutts said. "The goal is always the same, to return the highest quality set of search results."
He said webmasters could probably spend their time better than trying to figure out every little nuance of the Google search algorithm.
"So rather than trying to figure out reverse engineering our algorithm and trying to find all the different ways to rank higher and trying to take shortcuts, as long as you're trying to make a fantastic site that people love, that's really compelling, that there are always going to, that's the sort of thing that puts you on the same side as Google," Cutts said.
Now what about getting leads from other sources, such as social media leads? Cutts discussed this type of traffic generation next.
"I'm all for having eggs in lots of different baskets, because if your website goes down and then you can always have your brick-and-mortar business," Cutts said. "If your ranking on Google is not as good, then you can have other channels that you can use – from print media advertising, to billboards, to Twitter, to Facebook. So you should always have a very well-rounded portfolio of ways to get leads whether from people walking through your door or Yellow Pages or whatever it is, because you can't count on any one channel always working out perfectly.
"As long as you have great content you should do well in Google," he added. "But you know if people are spamming or you hire a bad SEO, that can lead to unpredictable results.
So yes, this is another case where Google is praising good content as being the best path forward, because that is what the end user wants to see. And Google
is about making the end user – not the SEO company – happy.
"The Missing Link" is a Search Engine Watch exclusive reader-driven Q&A column with veteran content publicist Eric Ward. You can ask questions about all aspects of links and link building and Eric will provide his expert answers. Submit your questions here, and you may be featured in a future installment!
Until Google's recent algorithm changes we consistently ranked on top of the search results for our primary keyword phrase. Now we are on page two for that phrase so I am looking into pursuing guest posts on other sites. To my understanding Google will detect and penalize unnatural link patterns. As a result I am wondering if I obtain guest posts from a blog network would or could this be easily detected and penalized as a pattern?
– Blue on Page 2
I'll give you a short answer and a long answer.
Short answer: Writing posts for other sites (which is a form of guest posting) is still an effective way to build credible links.
The devil is always in the details though. Here's a longer answer.
First, a video from Google's Matt Cutts addressed this exact subject. I strongly suggest you watch it:
Of everything Cutts said, the thing that struck me most was when he said, "It's a long and time honored tradition" for writers with expertise in certain topics to share content with each other. In other words, it's absolutely acceptable.
In fact, this column you're reading likely falls into that category. I've written this post for Search Engine Watch and nobody else.
Technically, this is a guest post. But this is much different than a guest posting approach where you aren't selective about where you seek out posting opportunities or, on the receiving end, you aren't selective about who you accept guest post content from.
Here are few guidelines/criteria that may help you as you seek out guest posting opportunities:
- Look for signals/signs of credibility and longevity:
- How long has the target site been on the web? Longer may mean more credibility.
- Who owns/operates the site? Have you ever heard of them?
- Is there an editorial team with clearly stated guidelines? There should be.
- Is the target site's content made up of mostly guest posts? If so, be very cautious. Search to see if the posts have appeared on other sites.
- Look at the other guest posts on the site. Search on author names to see who they are and what kind of web presence they have.
- If you want to take your credibility analysis really far, do a backlink analysis of the target site, as well as the target sites of the guest posters, to see just how credible their existing link profiles are. I personally stay away from any site that has any evidence of a spammy backlink profile, because I don't want my site to have any negative signal association with those sites.
One final point: at the start of your question, you specifically mentioned your Google rankings. Consider that even under the best guest posting circumstances, you can only take guest posting so far as a ranking-specific strategy.
You can't permanently guest post your way to the top of the search rankings. Nor should that be the only goal.
In fact, I look at guest posting opportunities for their potential to help my direct traffic and exposure to an audience I'm interested in reaching. I don't guest post for search rank. Seeking search rank via guest posting can lead you to make poor decisions and leave a linking footprint that Google can detect as manipulative.
Original Article Post by Eric Ward @ Search Engine Watch
Getting listed on the first page of Google is an incredible accomplishment. Your efforts shouldn't stop there, however.
A general listing without all the bells and whistles just won't get you the same amount of site traffic as it used to since users tend to go for the one that stands apart from the rest. The search engine competition is fierce, so don't get left behind while everyone else makes the necessary changes to get noticed.
Consider how you would approach building the perfect web page. You might fine tune your headings, messaging, include images, and add resources to increase conversions. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is just as important in the search engine result pages (SERPs).
Here are a few tips that should help your Google search result attract the most attention.
1. Unique, Relevant Page Titles
Use as many characters as possible. That's prime real estate!
A good character range to work with is 50-65 characters. Google search results will truncate right around the 65 character mark.
Pixel width of your title tag should be considered, because words with wide letters such as A and W won't be able to fit as many characters. Google will completely ignore anything past the 70 character mark and potentially report a “Long title tag” error in Google Webmaster Tools.
Your page title should be unique and relevant to the topic of your page. Include your targeted key phrases as close to the beginning as possible and, if it applies, localize your page title.
For more tips on titles, see "How to Write Title Tags for Search Engine Optimization" and "Ecommerce Title Tags: Top 5 Ways to Increase Clicks".
2. Search Engine Friendly URLs
If your domain name has your targeted keyword(s) in it, that's a bonus, however, don't go out of your way to buy an exact match domain name and get caught up in the exact match domain algorithm.
Utilize search engine friendly file names and permalink structures to make your listing more relevant, for example, /awesome-web-page/. URLs, for example, ?pageid=246, don't say anything to the user and won't help your rankings.
3. Enticing Meta Descriptions With a Call-to-Action
Your meta descriptions won't have an effect on your rankings, however, this is your chance to encourage searchers to click your link over your competition's.
Your descriptions should range from 100 to 150 characters. Use them wisely. Anything shorter or longer might result in an error reported in Google Webmaster Tools.
Describe what the page or service is about and then ask the user to do something with a call-to-action (CTA). In my example, I include my phone number and mention that we pick up the phone (you'd be surprised how many companies don't).
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you had multiple page title tags in the head of your webpage? How about multiple meta description tags? Check out this Google SERP experiment.
4. Google Authorship
Google authorship is one of the most effective ways to make your search result stand out from the others, especially if nobody else in your niche is doing it. If you Google anything SEO related, the SERPs are peppered with faces; however, if you're in an industry that is less tech savvy, like construction or real estate, you could likely be the only one with your face in the search results.
Authorship is pretty easy to implement. If you haven't already claimed your content with Google authorship, follow this tutorial to find out how.
5. Google Local
Optimizing your website and brand for local can be very beneficial whether it's for a huge company or a small mom-and-pop shop. You can review the accuracy of your business listings with tools like GetListed.org.
Claiming your business listings and filling out your profiles completely help Google to understand more about your business. Businesses with more citations from high-quality websites will rank higher.
By helping Google understand the link between your business listings and your website, you are more likely to have the map listing shown just below your search result.
6. Personalized Annotations
Google tries to make recommendations more discoverable to those who would find them most useful. Because people trust their friends' recommendations, personalized annotations display who have already +1'd a webpage or blog post.
You can increase the likelihood of these annotations to show up in search results by adding a +1 button and a Google+ badge on your page.
Inline annotations aren't currently supported in mobile browsers.
7. Google Reviews
A great way to increase your local search rankings is to simply ask your customer and clients for Google reviews.
Make asking for a Google review part of your process. About 10 percent of my company's clients actually take the time to submit a website design review. While I'd like to get a review from 100 percent, the ones who do add up over time, and those gold stars really stand out in the SERPs!
Most service industries have the luxury of hand-picking who they ask to submit a review. On the other hand, restaurants and hotels, for example, have to take a different approach by monitoring their reviews and find ways to address unhappy customers with resolutions that will hopefully turn those poor reviews into great reviews.
Conclusion
Don't be satisfied with a Google listing that doesn't highlight you against the competition. Implementing these guidelines will ensure that you're well on your way to an optimized search result.
Original Article Post by
Matt Morgan @
Search Engine Watch
Mobile marketing is no longer an aspirational play for some new pie in the sky. The biggest challenge today, according to Google, is educating or training marketers how to deliver on mobile's promise, with the right strategies and processes for specific goals.
Taking a fresh look at the mobile landscape, Google has outlined five critical questions that businesses should address when developing a mobile strategy. The company published its latest recommendations and examples in the second edition of the Mobile Playbook as a follow-up to last year's guide.
"At Google, we believe that constant connectivity represents a sociological shift in how users relate with both the digital and physical world. Businesses that understand this will win," writes Jason Spero, head of global mobile sales and strategy at Google.
While most chief marketing officers are already embracing mobile, the gap between knowing and doing remains prevalent, Greg Stuart, chief executive of the Mobile Marketing Association, notes in the report. "We believe that now is the time to close that knowing versus doing gap. It is time to take action and not just do mobile, but do mobile right," Spero adds.
Google interviewed hundreds of marketers to understand their struggles and best examples for success in mobile, and backs those findings with the latest market data to highlight important trends. More than two-thirds of all mobile searches occur at home, according to a recent study from Nielsen.
Juxtaposing that data with its own research from more than 30 internal studies, Google says 88 percent of clicks on mobile search ads are incremental to organic clicks, and in certain industries the number can be as high as 97 percent.
Another recent study from Nielsen found that half of all purchase-related conversions happened within an hour of the mobile searches that initiated them.
To hit those results, Google offers marketers five tips or action items to help them adapt to the new marketing concepts and opportunities made possible by mobile:
- Focus your value proposition so it meets true mobile-specific needs.
- Create mobile-first, not desktop-lite, destinations.
- Build mobile accountability into your organization.
- Drive ROI (return on investment) and branding with mobile marketing.
- Integrate mobile into multi-screen marketing.
"When companies talk about the opportunity mobile presents, often they are referring to the opportunity context presents. A better understanding of context, the specific circumstances in which your customers seek you out, such as time, location, and even proximity, allows your marketing message to be more targeted, meaningful and successful," Spero writes in the report.
Tailored messaging is required to effectively serve each customer's specific need. For example, someone searching for pizza at 7:30 p.m. on a mobile device downtown isn't likely to be looking for the same thing as someone searching for pizza on a laptop at home around lunchtime.
While mobile opens up new opportunities for conversion, according to Google, the path to conversion is very different from that which begins on a desktop or tablet.
"A mobile conversion doesn't necessarily entail filling up an online shopping cart and checking out," the report notes. "It can be a customer searching for store directions, calling your business directly or visiting in person. It can be an app download that leads to a purchase, or a shopping process that starts on mobile and then finishes on a computer or tablet later in the day."
This article was originally published on ClickZ.
If you eagerly watch your PageRank bar to check for any tiny little fluctuation in your site's rank, you've probably noticed that it hardly ever changes. Long gone are the days when we used to see PageRank update on a regular basis, and you could make decisions for link building and site health based on what your PageRank was.
But if you aren't seeing your PageRank change at all, does it mean anything in today's SEO world? This is the topic of a new Google webmaster help video.
Our website is not improving in Google PageRank despite having regular updates and foolproof content authorized by proven editors. What could be the reason for this? Kindly help in sussing out the issue. Thank you.
Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts explained that PageRank isn't something that gets updated frequently. In fact, if you've been working in the SEO industry for at least the past couple years, you can probably only name a handful of times it has been updated. Cutts said:
It's only updated periodically so you know for a while we would update it relatively often, now we'll update it a few times a year. Over time the toolbar PageRank is getting less usage just because recent versions of Internet Explorer don't really let you install toolbars that easily and Chrome doesn't have the toolbar, so over time the PageRank indicator will probably start to go away a little bit. But it's also the case that we only update this information every few months so it does take time in order to show up.
His statement that PageRank will "start to go away a little bit" does bring up the speculation that perhaps we will see PageRank get retired, something many of us have been expecting for a while, simply because it doesn't really get updated, and it isn't one of the signals that we tend to value as highly as we used to (although it is something many of us still check).
Cutts also reminded people that PageRank isn't about the quality content you have on your site, although it can play a role. PageRank is really about the number of links to your site, Cutts said:
So check and make sure that you have a good architecture, that you have a home page with well linked static links going to the individual pages of your site, something like a tree like structure that leads to the individual pages can be good. Make sure that the pages that are really important are just one or two links from your home page so that the PageRank is still relatively high there.
For any site that wants to rank well and get natural links, you need to make sure you do have that great quality content that makes people want to link to you and share with others.
Make sure that a lot of people know about your content to know that high quality content because if a lot of people are linking to your site and those people who are linking to you have high PageRank then you'll be more likely to have higher page rank as well. So it's not just the quality of your content, the quality content is a little bit determining how much people want to link to you and then that will determine your PageRank but PageRank doesn't look at the quality of the text on your site its look at the number of links and the quality of those links and how they point to your website.
So once again, it comes down to creating great content in order to get the good quality links you need to increase your PageRank.
One of the cardinal rules of SEO is to make sure you serve the same content to Googlebot that you serve to end users. Many years ago this used to be a spam technique where it would show Googlebot one version of a webpage, while sending the users to completely different version, often that had nothing to do with what Googlebot thought it did.
So if you're using geo-targeting in order to serve country-specific content to the end-user, how should you handle this? That's the topic of the latest webmaster help video.
Using Geo-detection technique is against Google, I am offering the useful information (price, USP's) to the users based on the Geo-location, will Google consider this as a Spam i.e. showing X content to SE and Y content to user.
Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts explained exactly how geo-targeting should be used by webmasters so that there are no problems from a Google penalty perspective.
Geolocation is not spam. As long as you are showing "oh someone is coming from a French IP address and let’s direct them to the French version of my page or the French domain for my business", that is totally fine. "Someone comes in from a German IP address I’ll redirect them over to the German version of my page" that’s totally fine.
He also made it clear that you shouldn't treat Googlebot any differently than you would at ordinary user coming into your website.
So if Googlebot comes in, you check the IP address, and imagine we’re coming from the United States, just redirect Googlebot to the United States version of the page, or the dot-com, or whatever it is you would serve to regular United States users. So geolocation is not spam."
Cutts also said that Google treats traffic differently based on geolocation, "so that if the user comes in, they send them to what they think is the most appropriate page based on a lot of different signals, but usually the IP address of the user."
Now comes into the gray area, when it comes to the different content you're serving to Googlebot versus the end user. Cutts said:
Showing X content to search engines and Y content to users, that is cloaking, that’s showing different content to Google than to users, and that is something I would be very careful about.
But. as long as you’re treating Googlebot just like every other user, whatever IP address they come from when you’re geo-locating, as long as you don’t have special code that looks for the user agent of Googlebot or special code that looks for the IP address of Googlebot, and you just treat Googlebot exactly like you would treat a visitor from whatever country were coming from, then you’ll be totally fine.
Because you’re not cloaking you’re not doing anything different for Google, you’re doing the exact same thing for Google that you would do for any other visitor coming from that web address. As long as you handle it that way you’ll be in good shape you won’t be cloaking and you’ll be able to return nicely geo-located pages for Google and search engines without any risk whatsoever.
So when it comes to geolocation, you'll be fine as long as you make sure that what you serve to Googlebot is the same as what you would serve to a user from the same country that Googlebot is coming from.
The fragmentation of search results from Google's continual algorithm updates, improvements to personalized search, and changes to the SERP keep practitioners of SEO on their toes in the never-ending quest to optimize earned media. The latest, Google Carousel, presents a new opportunity to appear at the top of Google's search results, but with it also comes some new best practices.
What Are Carousel Results?
By now you've read about or seen the carousel, a row of images across the top of the Google SERP against a dark background. For now, the carousel contains up to 20 results and appears primarily in results for travel, hospitality, and restaurant queries.
We've also noticed the carousel appearing on queries in sports ("chicago bears roster"), entertainment ("james bond movies"), and education ("best california colleges"), indicating that Google is expanding the carousel to additional categories.
A search for [hotels near disneyland] results in a carousel and for each hotel on the carousel you can see an image, reviews, and property name and address. The SERP no longer provides the 6- or 10-pack, and instead shows the usual sponsored links, Google's sponsored Hotel Finder pack above the organic results, and a map on the right.
Interestingly the variation of terms on which carousel appears seems to be arbitrary. A search for [disneyland hotels] didn't contain the carousel:
How Google Carousel Works
For certain local terms, Carousel has eliminated the local listings pack and replaced it with the horizontal bar of 20 image-based results. These 20 results are now effectively in the first position. For non-local terms, it provides more visual views of more results in a smaller space, enhancing the user experience.
Clicking on a carousel result for a local search leads us to another SERP with a branded search query for the business in that particular location.
In this case, the SERP for the automatically generated query "Ramada Maingate at the Park Anaheim CA" contains a summary of information about the hotel on the right side of the page, and the usual sponsored links and organic results on the left.
This summary contains photos of the property, a Google Map, a Google Street View image, contact information, the address, reviews, booking information, and suggested searches.
Impact of Google Carousel
BrightEdge research shows that carousel currently impacts 14 percent of keywords across all industries. Travel and Hospitality businesses are the most affected, with carousel results appearing on 33 percent of their keywords.
Restaurants are a close second, with 27 percent of keywords receiving carousel results. Currently we see carousel results appearing on only 5 percent of Entertainment terms, but that can be expected to grow as Google rolls out the capabilities to more query types.
The Google Places and Google+ Local Connection
At the bottom of each right-hand side information box is a gray link stating, "Are you the business owner?" Clicking on this link takes you to Google Places for Business.
Clearly, Google is encouraging businesses to create Places pages and Google+ Local for Business pages. Without claiming a Google Places page, business owners are dependent on the information Google has arbitrarily gathered from the website, partner sources such as Hotels.com, Zagat, or Insiderpages.com, and the reviews it collects.
Image Accuracy
In the case of our hotel query for Disneyland, clicking on "See photos" on the information box for the Ramada Maingate leads us to a page of photos. We see each photo displayed in full screen above of carousel of photos gathered from various sources. Many of the photos are blurry when blown up to the full screen size.
Further research on this hotel's own website shows us that it opened a new building several months ago, and that those photos have not been included in the carousel of photos above.
If the Ramada Maingate claims its Google Places for Business page, it could upload high-resolution images that are up to date, thereby showcasing the property at its best. It would also ensure a more appealing photo is shown in the carousel itself.
What is the Long-Term Outlook for Carousel?
From what we have seen, Google is rolling out updates to carousel on a regular basis – by including carousel results on additional keywords and categories. It is unclear what categories will be added, or why carousel is displayed on some queries and not others, no matter how similar.
So far, carousel hasn't resulted in drop in traffic or conversions since it began appearing in July. Secure search is the major upheaval for SEO practitioners now, and places greater responsibility on marketers to ensure their content is relevant to users. Google Places for Business and Google+ are additional content pieces that should now be added to the overall content plan.
How You Can Optimize for Carousel
Learn more local optimization tactics at SES Chicago 2013:
See the full agenda.
Carousel is an opportunity for local businesses to appear in the first position on more searches.
With 20 results appearing in the carousel, it beats the former local 6- or 10-pack and the traditional SERP. However, it means your business is competing for attention with 19 other businesses, with various levels of name recognition, reviews, and quality of images.
Here are four things you can do immediately:
- Set up a Google Places for Business and Google+ page. This post outlines the most important aspects of both services, and explains how to merge the two types of pages for a single business.
- Make sure images are high resolution, unique, and order them in terms of your priority.
- Encourage happy customers to review your business on Google. Research shows that reviews play a significant role of placement in the carousel.
- Measure performance and establish a new baseline.
Original Article Post by
Jim Yu @
Search Engine Watch
If you've ever been arrested, whether or not you are guilty of the charges, your mug shot may be online. And a potential employer or neighbor might find that mug shot right in the search results when they perform a search for your name.
Not to worry though, because Google's algorithm is going to help squash those results. Not because it feels for you, but because many of the sites hosting those images are not playing nice within Google's guidelines.
But some journalists say this type of tampering with results is against the First Amendment. This is the story unraveling around the "mug shot" algorithm.
Mug Shots Free for All
In recent years, websites have been popping up left and right that curate the notorious mug shot from public records and host it on their sites. These websites often have a database of thousands upon thousands of images, ranging from the Average Joe to celebrities like Lindsey Lohan.
The controversy is specifically surrounding the innocence or guilt of these people, in addition to the website's business model.
Mug shots are taken upon entering the jail system, and beyond the initial snapshot, no one viewing the images on these websites can make a judgment about whether or not the person was actually charged.
Add to that the fact that a charge of drunk in public could be right alongside a charge of child molestation, and you could see how it might irk some people to be on equal grounds with others in these mug shot websites.
To compound matters, many but not all of these websites charge a fee to take the images down upon request. Others simply want to see proof of innocence, and take it on a case-by-case basis, according to a story at The New York Times.
For those sites that are charging money, many call this an extortion act.
Google Regulates the Situation
When a New York Times journalist approached Google asking it about its mug shot search results, a Google spokesperson simply said Google was empathetic to those who had to deal with their mug shots being found online, but that "with very narrow exceptions, we take down as little as possible from search."
But within days, that Google spokesperson wrote back to the journalist stating that a Google team had, in fact, been working on an algorithm that would address the issue. Not because The Times journalist jolted them into action, but because many of those sites conflict with Google guidelines in some fashion or another.
The spokesperson said unbeknownst to him, "Our team has been working for the past few months on an improvement to our algorithms to address this overall issue in a consistent way. We hope to have it out in the coming weeks."
The Times reported this algorithm update went live "sometime on Thursday," referring to Thursday of last week. Coincidentally, this was right around the time Penguin 2.1 was released.
The quote from the Google spokesperson to the New York Times was unclear on whether the algorithm was created specifically for the mug shot issue, or if Google had been working on an algorithm update that would ultimately take care of sites like those in question (for example, Penguin 2.1).
In a seperate inquiry to Google, I didn't receive any further support for this theory.
Journalists React to Regulations, Citing the First Amendment
Before Google stepped in with its mighty algorithm, many states had already tried to regulate these for-profit mug shot sites with legislation – legislation that violated the First Amendment, some journalists argued. From the New York Times:
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press argues that any restriction on booking photographs raises First Amendment issues and impinges on editors' right to determine what is newsworthy.
Earlier this year, Nieman Journalism Lab wrote a piece on a proposed Florida law that aimed to put the kibosh on the efforts of these mug shot businesses online. Its report stated that as distasteful as these exploitative sites were, "the First Amendment does not allow the government to regulate content simply because it is distasteful."
But that doesn't mean Google wouldn't regulate it. Heck, it's not the first time Google has been caught up in constitutional law with its algorithm. Like it or lump it, Google has the ability to censor results.
It wasn't just Google, however, that recently had a potentially deep impacted on the for-profit mug shot industry. Companies like MasterCard, after hearing about these sites and their practices, severed ties with those businesses.
And although Google's latest algorithm update may not have been motivated by mug shot ethics, rather, a violation of Google law, the unfortunate consequence for these mug shot websites is being extracted from the search results, much to the delight of the innocent people who just wanted to make those unflattering images go away.
Original Article Post by
Jessica Lee @
Search Engine Watch
Everybody's favorite (or least favorite) aquatic bird is back, and now site owners are once again asking how Google Penguin 2.1 has affected their website.
As he did for Penguin 1.0 and Penguin 2.0, Glenn Gabe at G-Squared Interactive has analyzed 26 websites impacted by the algorithmic change to determine what factors contributed to sites that got hit.
Gabe, who has now analyzed more than 275 sites hit by Penguin, told Search Engine Watch that he believes Google Penguin 2.1 had a much greater impact than its predecesor.
Why Sites Were Hit by Google Penguin 2.1
Not surprisingly, Penguin 2.1 appears to have identified newer link spam – those links that were created at a later date than the Penguin 2.0 rollout in May, Gabe said.
Of that link spam, Gabe said the following represent the culprits:
- Forum spam: This includes comments in forums with exact match anchor text links.
- Forum bio spam: Biographies of forum users containing exact match anchor text links.
- "Do follow" blogs: Blogs that don't add nofollow to the links posted. "Let's face it," Gabe said. "Being listed on do-follow resource sites can absolutely send Google a signal that you are trying to game links."
- Blogroll spam: Watch for blogroll links gone wrong. "Some may be fine," Gabe said. "If you are unsure which ones are bad versus good, ask for help from a seasoned SEO."
- Spammy directories: If you've used spammy directories in the past, and still have links out there, Gabe said "nuke them, have them nofollowed, or disavow them."
- Blog comment signature spam: Google seems to be targeting these links even when they're not followed, Gabe said.
Gabe also spotted a new culprit: classified websites showing up with heavy unnatural links leading to destination websites. He also said that, unfortunately, he has seen proof of negative SEO rearing its ugly head during Penguin 2.1.
"I’ve had several companies reach out to me that are claiming negative SEO," Gabe said. "And after looking at the situation, I have to agree with them. And worse, I saw an entire business category (in a geo area) get hit with spammy links. That seemed very suspicious. All the business owners (who are competitors) were all blindsided."
Tips and Recovery Recommendations
It's business as usual on how to deal with cleaning up your site for the next visit from Penguin, Gabe said. That means downloading and analyzing the links, creating a plan of attack to remove and disavow as needed, and if you have to, remove pages (unless they're important).
Here are Gabe's top five recommendations on what to do if you've been hit by Penguin 2.1:
- Understand that Penguin heavily targets unnatural links. Your new content and social activity won't trigger a recovery.
- Thoroughly analyze your link profile, while keeping a keen eye on exact match and rich anchor text. That's what Penguin targets.
- Remove those links if you can, and disavow the remaining links. And use the domain operator in the disavow file when the domain is low-quality. Don’t try and target specific URLs on a spammy domain, when you can nuke the entire domain.
- Make sure more unnatural links aren’t being added as time goes on. Gabe said he's had a number of business owners think they cleaned up their situation, only to get hit harder during Penguin 2.1. After checking their link profiles, you can clearly see more spammy links were added during the spring, summer, and fall. This is what got them hit by Penguin 2.1.
- Move fast and be aggressive. Gabe said he has seen Penguin recoveries during Panda updates, so there is a possibility of recovery prior to the next official Penguin update.
Image Credit: JCVI
Original Article Post by
Jessica Lee @
Search Engine Watch
A long-standing aphorism in the search community dictates that chaos brings opportunity. Well, Google has brought us the chaos.
The last couple of weeks have been full of the kind of Google news that fundamentally alters the way SEO professionals and site owners do business. Reeling from a triple shot of change, the search community has been eating anti-anxiety meds, writing emails to clients explaining what will happen next, and generally running around in circles.
From a social media and content marketer point of view, Google's recent changes ring with the thrill of opportunity.
Businesses tend to parcel out their digital marketing tasks to multiple third-party service providers. One company does SEO. Another does PPC and a third does social marketing.
Now Google has given our industry a reason to force consolidation. Businesses that continue to see digital marketing as a series of silos will miss out on a myriad of opportunities to cross-pollinate their marketing with all of the their other online efforts.
Here's what Google has changed and what those changes mean from a social marketer's point of view.
Keyword Reporting
As Thom Craver pointed out in his article, "Goodbye, Keyword Data," all searches now happen on encrypted servers, eliminating keyword data previously provided to site owners. Google said it's a user privacy issue:
"We added SSL encryption for our signed-in search users in 2011, as well as searches from the Chrome omnibox earlier this year," a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Watch. "We're now working to bring this extra protection to more users who are not signed in."
For businesses that live and die by their keyword rankings this sounds like catastrophic news. In fact, their visibility for certain terms in search is only a starting place. Granted it's an enormously strong starting place.
Keywords told us "what," but weren't indicators of how likely a site visitor would find exactly what they were looking for on a particular website or how likely they were to stick around and convert into a paying customer.
The removal of keywords forces website marketers to move the needle forward. Google is very good at figuring out what your site is about and no longer wants to be told.
This is where content and social media come into play. Well-written pages that serve value to the human beings navigating a website are critical to conversions and true ROI.
Establishing relationships via social media with visitors that are still in the decision-making process help to foster an emotional affinity for the brand and separate the researchers from real customers. In other words, search and social shouldn't be separate. They need to be working together as a marketing team.
Hashtag Search
Just as easily as Google taketh away the keywords, Google giveth hashtagging. Hashtags, particularly those used in Google+, are now providing value added results in Google search.
Along with standard search results for their query, the user will also get a live scrolling feed of public Google+ posts bearing the hashtag searched for and links to those hashtag feeds on Twitter and Facebook. The Google+ feed isn't showing up for every hashtag searched, it seems to depend on if the tag is trending at the time of the search.
Hastags present branding and topical authority opportunities. When used judiciously, well-placed hashtags in blog titles, Google+ posts, Facebook and Twitter updates, and in image descriptions across Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine can add a layer of cohesiveness to a brand's online campaigns.
One of my clients is interested in developing an ongoing series of Hangouts on Air for their customers. We had already discussed the use of a branded hashtag to help promote discussion on other platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Now that we know there is an added benefit in search, we will be even more tactical about how we post and share promotions of their Hangouts.
Combined with the authorship markup, hashtags used appropriately in blogs should help writers aggregate their articles around specific topics and increase the perception of authority on those topics.
Hummingbird Update
Danny Goodwin points out that the technological update of Google search is designed to handle more complex queries, in his article, "Google Hummingbird Takes Flight."
As the search engine has matured over the last 15 years, its understanding of language has become more sophisticated. Like any other teenager, it can combine vocabulary with grammar to understand the meaning of questions rather than just matching words on page to words in a query. Google has grown up to understand how we communicate and share information with one another.
This is what is most exciting about Internet marketing. The content of a website no longer needs to be artificially loaded with terms meant to attract web crawlers.
The more we produce material that real human readers will enjoy, the more search will understand the communication connection. The digital space continues to become a more accurate reflection the real world.
Summary
Embrace the change, shift your paradigm, tear down a few cubical walls, and free your content writers, webmasters, SEO professionals, and community managers to work as a cohesive team. It's a brave new world we live in.
Image Credit: Dimka/Flickr
Original Article Post by
Michelle Stinson-Ross @
Search Engine Watch
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