In this week's search video recap, I try a new format, breaking the news up in segments - do let me know if you like it. I am sorry the video is so long, just lots of information to cover....
In this week's search video recap, I try a new format, breaking the news up in segments - do let me know if you like it. I am sorry the video is so long, just lots of information to cover....
Page load time (speed) is a factor currently in the AdWords quality score. But soon it may be coming to Google's organic ranking algorithm. If you have a really slow site, it may impact how high you rank in Google....
In this weeks recap, I act all tired and dazed from coming off a red eye from Las Vegas and doing the video at 8am in the morning, with maybe 20 minutes of sleep. Of course I talked about...
Yesterday we reported that the Google Caffeine index is launching right before the holiday season. I wrote my post like that, simply because I was in shock to see this being rolled out, even "slowly" before the holiday season. Honestly,...
Tedster, WebmasterWorld's Administrator, posted an excellent thread at WebmasterWorld asking how do you think Google handles the canonical issues they find on their own? By that he means, if webmasters don't use a 301 redirect or use Google's canonical header...
What appears to be a newbie, posted a thread at Google Webmaster Help asking why his site is not ranking yet. He also asked if he had something to do with the URL https://internal.google.com/spamteam/users/cutts/matt/ban_list/ showing up in his log files....
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post asking where do SEOs make the most amount of money? Is it by offering SEO consulting services? Is it by building web sites with affiliate models? Is it by offering SEO...
Google shows about ten Sesame Streets logos over three days for their 40th anniversary. Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others dressed up for Halloween. Google's home page fade adds "this space left blank," and it is ridiculous. AdSense is testing...
Google's Matt Cutts, the man who is incredibly responsible the idea of webmaster and search engine communication, has gone over a year without posting anything at WebmasterWorld. His last post was on November 2, 2008 in a thread named Google.com...
Every month we give you a Google specific update on what webmasters are talking about at WebmasterWorld, complied with the past month of changes we reported, specifically at Google. To see last month's report, see the October 2009 Google Webmaster...
Google updates the toolbar PageRank scores yesterday. Bing did yet another search index update. Google launched social search in the experimental labs. Google adds instructions for their simplistic fading home page. Yahoo finally killed GeoCities. Did Bing figure out 301...
Five months ago, I wrote a piece named Want Your Google News To Show Up in Google Finance? NASDAQ:GOOG which basically said, put the stock ticker in the title of your article and you're golden for showing up in Google...
Historically, Google treated the 404 (page not found) and 410 (gone) server header page status codes as the same. Both meant, the page no longer exists. Well, that has all changed now. Google is now treating the 410 as "more...
Google seemed to have a minor search update, while Bing had a major search index update. Microsoft and Google both confirmed deals with Twitter on the firehouse. Yahoo added Delicious data and Search Monkey data to Site Explorer. AdWords released...
Last week, we ran a poll asking if you should risk linking to competitors. The specific question we asked was, "Do You Link To Direct Competitors?" Not sure if you are surprised by the results, but after receiving 140 or...
A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster who was trying to figure out why his site was not coming up for a search on its own name. After some review, Googler, JohnMu, said the site has recently shown a...
A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion on how useful the breadcrumb trail / navigation is for your SEO strategy. Most people agree that having them from a usability standpoint, makes total sense. So, for users, it makes sense. But does...
There is a really long thread at Google Webmaster Help on the topic of the .GB.COM TLD. Some are of the belief that Google is penalizing or banning these domains. Of course, to you and me, that sounds ridiculous. There...
This week was pretty busy over at the Search Engine Roundtable. We broke the news Google has dropped PageRank data from Webmaster Tools and we hope from more places. Yahoo was wrong about the meta keywords tag, they still use...
Last week, I reported that Yahoo dropped the meta keywords tag and stopped using it completely. Remember, I told you that I wasn't convinced when I heard that and I asked the Senior Director of Search at Yahoo if he...
A Google Webmaster Help thread has one webmaster who noticed Google indexed his site with the server port in the URL structure. So instead of Google ranking the http://www.domain.com/ it ranks the site, and every page within the site as...
One of the key topics I have heard being discussed in the speaker room last week at the SMX East conference was that the Google results were not good. It rarely came up in the sessions, except for Greg Boser...
This week, I got sick during SMX East, which made for a pretty poor sounding video - so I apologize for my voice. We did cover 33 or so sessions at SMX East, which had a ton of useful and...
A Google Webmaster Help thread has confirmation from Google on an old topic in SEO, the trailing slash. Here is the quick answer: seroundtable.com is the same as seroundtable.com/seroundtable.com/page is not the same as seroundtable.com/page/ I believe the last time...
Update: New story named Yahoo's Senior Director of Search Got It Wrong, Yahoo Uses Meta Keywords Still. It is official, no major search engines use the meta keywords tag for ranking purposes in their search algorithms. Yahoo's, matter of fact,...
During the CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & SEO at SMX East yesterday, Bruce Johnson and Kathrin Probst from Google announced a new proposal for search engines to index AJAX. Let me explain the proposal in a very simplistic way, that...
Yesterday, I reported at Search Engine Land that Google is going to allow cross domain canonical tag. This means, if you have two sites (probably verified under the same webmaster tools account), you will be able to tell Google, all...
Google has been banning AdWords advertisers and warning advertisers of bans for low quality landing pages, but I think something is wrong with Google. Google fixed a low share of voice AdWords bug. Google has an image search update in...
A Google Webmaster Help thread once again confirms that Google ignores the geo-meta tags. Those tags somewhat look like this and use to serve the purpose of telling search engines where the site is based: <meta name="geo.placename" content="United States" /><meta...
Yahoo launched a new search interface along with a brand campaign. Google AdWords is testing a new keyword tool, which is extremely advanced compared to the current one. AdWords advertisers were hit with a "low share of voice" notice....
A Google Webmaster Help thread asked if he should include fragments (i.e. the # signs found in some URLs) in the new parameter handling feature in Google Webmaster Tools. Again, parameter handling in Google Webmaster Tools gives you a way...
Back in the old days, referrer spam was a way to get quick rankings by spamming other site's referrer logs. Wikipedia explains it pretty well: Referrer spam is a kind of spamdexing (spamming aimed at search engines). The technique involves...
Google made historic news yesterday by declaring they do not use the meta keywords tag. Okay, I am being incredibly sarcastic. Google hasn't used the meta keywords tag for an incredibly long time and any "SEO" should know that. So...
In this week's recap, I take you to St. Louis with a quick recap on my laptop. Bing launched visual search, while Google launched news flip. Google added DoubleClick to AdWords. Parameter handling finally came to Google Webmaster Tools. Yahoo...
The question of having valid HTML and would it help your rankings in Google or other search engines is not new. Most SEOs believed that it made no impact on your rankings, unless Googlebot has serious issues crawling your site....
There is a featured WebmasterWorld thread on the topic of how Google treats affiliate links and if there are ways to hide your affiliate links from Google. There is discussion that Google will lower your rank of a web page,...
There is an excellent thread at WebmasterWorld on the topic of search engine position security. In short, the SEO is asking others, how secure do you feel that your rankings won't change all that much? How secure do you feel...
A few weeks ago, we ran a poll asking if you should flaunt your search engine rankings? We have about 150 responses in now, so I thought I share with you how SEOs like to show off their success. Question:...
On September 11th we covered why Google doesn't have a logo, but yet will "fix" Google Maps for "September 11 Attacks." We did however show off the logos for Bing and Ask.com for their remembrance. Also, Labor Day, Google didn't...
It seems that Google has finally gone on the record that longer domain name registration has no impact on your search engine rankings, at least not at Google. A Google Webmaster Help thread has a post from Googler, JohnMu, who...
Often, when you want to create a localized version of your site, you can create a duplicate site on a ccTLD (country level top level domain). For example, if I wanted to geotarget this site to UK users, I would...
There is an excellent topic at a WebmasterWorld thread (required paid access). The topic is named, "Am I asking for too much from SEO companies?" In short, the thread has one person who has several sites and has, over the...
There was a Yahoo Search update last night, that is currently updating right now. We released the Google Webmaster report for September 2009. Some are reporting a higher click through rate on the AdWords ads since Google moved the ads...
It has been a somewhat slow start to our typically monthly report based on a WebmasterWorld thread that tracks day-to-day changes with Google's web results. Overall, it seems like people are discussing two main things. (1) The Caffeine preview, Google's...
The topic of cloaking or IP deliver or useragent delivery is always a very touchy topic in the SEO industry. I am not going to get into the history, but in short, webmasters can use various methods to show GoogleBot...
There are hundreds of SEO tools out there, we have covered just a few. I recently saw a short thread with a person complaining his site has been removed from the Google index. In the Google Webmaster Help thread, a...
On occasion I share SEO tips on optimizing for Google News search results. Yesterday, Google's Maile Ohye posted a blog entry at the Google Webmaster Central blog on how to optimize for Google News results in both Google News and...
This week's video recap goes old school with my old video set up, sorry, I forgot my HD camera at home. Yahoo had a small, unconfirmed search update. Bing is still spamming us webmasters with fake referrals, I say enough...
Two days ago, I ran a poll asking our readers how accurate do they find the SEOMoz ranking factors survey. We have over a 160 responses in less than two days, so I thought I would post the results now....
Two threads at Google Webmaster Help report that .ME ccTLDs (domain names) can now be geo targeted in Google Webmaster Tools. Typically, Google doesn't allow you to geo-target a ccTLD (country specific top level domain). Google assumes that if you...
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion on the topic of promoting the fact that you rank number one in a search engine for an important keyword. Does it make sense, in some cases or any case, to promote the fact that...
A WebmasterWorld thread has new discussion around how important it is to have keywords in the URL. This is a very old SEO topic, but new chatter in the industry is saying how keywords in the URLs actually make more...
A thread at WebmasterWorld has a webmaster who is getting a bit nervous that the 301 redirects he set up for a site won't be the best bet in the long run for his end goals. In summary, his original...
SEOMoz published a revised version of their Search Engine Ranking Factors survey. They had 72 contributors complete a long survey, including myself, answering questions specific to ranking in search engines. I am not going to bother summarizing all the details...
Many sites feature a way to print a page of your site in a printer friendly view, by removing many of the ads, removing a lot of the navigation and so on. The issue with this, in some cases, is...
In this week's recap, Google began forcing even more advertisers into the new AdWords interface, some are not happy. Microsoft said they fixed the one word query fake referrers issue, again. We have listed several tools to compare Google Caffeine's...
A/B testing is the process of setting up two or more styles for a page, for the same piece of content. For example, let's say you had a page where you sold blue widgets and you wanted to try using...
I follow tons and tons of threads on SEO, SEM, Google, etc. I have been doing this for just about six years. One thing I often see is that there are people who want quick answers to why they don't...
A couple weeks ago, I asked our readers how feasible it was to rank in the number one spot in Google.com and at the same time rank #1 in a regional flavored Google search space. We have just about a...
A DigitalPoint Forums thread links to Matt's slides from WordCamp. The slides can be found on Google Docs, but I say, skip those and watch the video below of Matt's presentation. The one thing I learned from it was that...
A couple months back, Google ran an I/O conference. What many people don't know is that Matt Cutts and the search quality team video recorded a session with site reviews and posted it for everyone to see. The video is...
In this week's recap, I first discuss the 30 sessions we covered at the SES San Jose show this past week. I then get into the Google Caffeine update and what it is all about, including some religious debate. I...
A few weeks ago, we ran a poll asking Will You Remove The NoFollow Attributes From Your Pages? Why did we ask SEOs and webmasters this question? With the recent update from Google on how they handle the nofollow'ed links,...
We have your Google webmaster report for August. Also, Bing updated and still is testing for cloaking and is crawling like a mad man. Google pushed the AdWords ads closer to the free listings. Google changes the "more results" link....
A HighRankings Forum thread asks if it is possible to rank number one in Google.ca and Google.com, if the site is using a .ca ccTLD and is hosted in Canada. As you can see, the question has a lot of...
A Google Webmaster Help thread has a new topic that I never covered before in my (almost) 6 years of covering SEO forum threads. A Webmaster was using a server response code of 300, which is a response of "Multiple...
I found this video on "seo secrets" to be very funny, especially how they dressed up Matt Cutts of Google. Maybe you will laugh as well, so here it is: Forum discussion on this video at Google Webmaster Help....
It is that time of the month again and we have your Google webmaster update, brought to you by a WebmasterWorld thread. The July '09 report complaints and issues linger on. Including those issues found in the small Google July...
In this week's recap, I spend some time discussing the Yahoo and Microsoft deal, specifically the financial side and how that plays a role on how it impacts SEOs and webmasters. I also discuss the Google and Bing search updates,...
There is some discussion in the forums about a potential Google update underway. Keep in mind, the Google results are always in a state of fluctuation, so updates have to be more about how many people are noticing a major...
Google is now looking at location based links for location specific queries. Google might be selecting the wrong title for your site. Is Google penalizing StreamRotator or the porn industry? Bing does geo based location from the meta language tag....
One person posted a rant in the Google Webmaster Help forums about the "Top Contributors / Bionic Posters" in that forum. In short, Top Contributors / Bionic Posters are given the title by Googlers, who believe that these people are...
About a month ago, we reported that Google slapped the porn industry with a Google penalty of some sort. Soon after we reported the issue, Google seemed to have reversed the penalty on that industry. But we all thought it...
Last week, we asked you if you felt client involvement is necessary for a successful SEO campaign. The obvious answer to me, was yes, it was. But not everyone agrees, most do, but not everyone. 96% said some level of...
I have been tracking the WebmasterWorld thread on the July Google changes and a lot of people are now discussing how Google is treating location specific queries differently. By that I mean, the consensus in the thread is that there...
SEO Companies should have ironclad contracts that specify the terms of the business deal and what the deliverables are. Without it, you may not get paid and you may risk your business's future. This should be a no brainer for...
With the latest on how Google handles the nofollow attribute, I know of many webmasters who are removing them completely from their sites. Instead, they are either not linking out or linking out without the nofollow attribute added to the...
Jill Whalen started a fabulous thread at HighRankings Forums asking if there is any formula or calculation being used to figure out how competitive she or any SEO can go with a specific client. Jill explained that when it comes...
In this weeks search video recap, we unveil our new video opener, please tell us what you think. We also discuss the Google's second quarter earnings statement, recent Yahoo and Microsoft merger discussions and the Twitter scandal. Google updated their...
Jill Whalen posted an article at Search Engine Land that caused a stir in the SEO community. The name of the article is Is Most Of SEO Just A Boondoggle? (not sure if it was named something before). It is...
Several weeks ago, we discussed the debate over if Google treats SEOs as criminals. We even polled our readers on that question and the results were split. In any event, if you believe this to be true, or even if...
Title tags in the search results are very important, they drive clicks, which drives sales. It now appears that Google is pulling the title for some listings from Google Maps and not from the title tag in the page's source...
There is only so much CSS can accomplish with making headlines pretty. If you want to give your headlines a pretty font that not all computers support, then you need to go with graphics. But as an SEO, you don't...
In this week's recap, I share how the Google logo sent me tons of traffic for Tesla's birthday. I also discuss the July 4th logos and our video game pacman logo. Google Chrome OS was revealed this week as coming...
It is not uncommon to find SEOs asking other SEOs questions in the SEO discussion forums. But it is not everyday where you find the clients of an SEO coming in an asking questions about their own site, only to...
In August 2008, Google released what was called the enhanced 404 widget that allowed webmasters to easily create custom 404 pages. In fact, we still have a sample of this in action at advertize.html. But for some reason, I think...
In this week's video recap, we discuss the July Google webmaster report, a lot has happened over the past 30 days. Google may have had a PageRank quirk. Google penalized the porn industry and then reversed it. Google is messing...
We are a few days into July and the WebmasterWorld thread that covers Google changes from month to month has been getting a lot of traction over the past couple weeks. The overall theme is that there is a lot...
A WebmasterWorld thread asks if DMOZ is still relevant in 2009? DMOZ is a legendary web directory and has a ton of history. But is it still a critical or what it ever a critical part of your overall SEO...
Shaun, aka Hobo, has released a 157 page PDF guide on SEO. You can download the book over here. There are many SEO books out there, some free, some at a price. I would list some that I recommend, but...
A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around a topic I can relate with. My company, RustyBrick, builds out custom web software and sites, including iPhone apps. I often get new customers coming to me with their request to build them...
On Monday we reported that Google spanked the adult porn industry by penalizing many of the sites. There were many theories as to why those sites were penalized. It wasn't all the adult sites that were penalized but a nice...
I rarely cover how Google is treating the adult online industry. But I have noticed a thread at Google Webmaster Help forums that is pretty heated on the topic of Google penalizing hundreds of adult and pornographic web sites over...
There is an interesting conversation taking place at WebmasterWorld on the topic of page one results versus page two results. Senior member, Whitey, asks the question, should webmasters begin preparing their sites to rank well on page two over page...
I'm back this week after surviving the possible Swine Flu and getting the new iPhone 3GS, catch last week's text recap in case you missed it. This week, we quickly talk about the new and frequent toolbar PageRank update. We...
A couple weeks ago, Google made me and many SEOs very happy by adding a verified change of address feature that allows you to tell Google you are moving domains. Today, I learned from a Google Webmaster Help thread that...
SEOmoz has released their best practices guide on SEO. This time, they used actual data to back up the best practices and have changed some of their previous best practices based on the data. The post goes over the follow...
I am skipping the video this week, simply because I am a bit sick and my new iPhone is arriving anytime now. So here is the text recap of what we covered at the Search Engine Roundtable over the past...
A week ago, we asked our readers to vote on their thoughts on if Google sees SEOs as criminals. If you remember, this is based on the double-standard that some bloggers feel Google is placing on some groups over another...
Richard at SEO Gadget showed how Google seemed to have penalized specific pages of his site from ranking in the Google index. The penalty seemed to be fair, in that there were nasty comments that slipped through his comment spam...
In this week's video, I discuss the recent debate on if Google sees SEOs as criminals or not. I also discuss how Google is now notifying webmasters after they review a site. Google updated the webmaster tools design, added a...
The Nofollow PageRank sculpting topic was not the only heated debate at last week's SMX Advanced conference. We have some SEOs claiming Google sees all SEOs as criminals before being innocent. Michael Gray's How Google Profiles SEO’s and Lisa Barone's...
In this week in search, I discuss how Matt Cutts of Google's statements on the nofollow attribute used for PageRank sculpting has sent shock waves through the industry. I discuss that topic for a while, so you may want to...
Google Squared made its debut yesterday as a Google Labs project at google.com/squared. Honestly, it is very cool to use and has a lot of potential. But it is also extremely risky and often shows very poor results. Google Squared...
Yesterday we covered the news that SEOs are wasting PageRank by using the nofollow to sculpt their PageRank. In short, if you had 10 links on a page, and nofollowed 5 of them, the 5 that are followed only get...
An interesting Google Webmaster Help thread discusses the old and new way of handling duplicate content. In the old days, you either 301 redirected page A to page B, when there was duplicate content. But if that wasn't possible, you...
Last night at SMX Advanced Matt Cutts of Google reportedly dropped a bombshell on the SEO community when he said that using the nofollow to PageRank sculpt might not work like you (SEOs) thought. Danny Sullivan explained it well: If...
In this week's video, which I created on Thursday, but published on Friday, we discussed several SEM topics. First, there was a Google Toolbar PageRank update. Google is testing new click tracking. Can Google rank pages higher on certain days?...
We asked our readers a few weeks ago if they can beat Wikipedia in the Google results? The answer is yes, most SEOs believe they can beat Wikipedia's listings in the Google results. 81% of SEOs feel they can beat...
A Cre8asite Forum thread has discussion around the topic of updating a web page that does really well in the search engines. The member asked, would you dare change your best producing web page? The reason the SEO wants to...
An interesting WebmasterWorld thread has a theory that for some sites, Google may give that site higher ranking based on what day of the week it is. The SEO has been tracking the traffic from Google to the site for...
Many local SEO experts came together to publish the second version of the Local Search Ranking Factors. This guide grades how important each factor is in ranking well in local search. The survey polled 27 local SEO experts on 49...
Most of us have had the client from hell but we often don't like to talk about it. There is a Google Webmasters Help thread which takes us through one client from hell. If you read through all 60 or...
In this 13 minute video recap, I go quickly through the past two weeks of search news. First, I had a baby girl, so that is why I missed the recap last week. Google made major changes named search options,...
This is a great video posted at SEOptimise on what should Google do with black hat SEOs. The video interviews 50 SEOs at SES London. Really funny stuff - great job! Forum discussion at Sphinn....
I often see threads at the Google Webmasters Help discussion forum of people who have sites that were penalized for having issues with their site in the Google Webmaster guidelines. But it is not often where you see a thread...
We covered this topic twice in the past, including January 2008 and December 2007. A post by Ben McKay has 80+ SEO Job Interview Questions, which may be the biggest list of questions I have seen to date. I am...
Jill Whalen, in her High Ranking Advisor wrote a piece named Setting Up an SEO Shop Overnight! Jill goes on a well-deserved rant about how SEO companies are popping up left and right, even thought the people running these SEO...
In any business field, making sure to protect your business from being taken advantage of through the legal arena is something that every company must be prepared for. The larger you are, the more chances you are to be hit...
Gab Goldenberg from SEO ROI posted a thread at Google Webmasters Help discussion forums when he noticed Google began to drop his rankings for all his pages. I have been tracking the thread for about three weeks, but held off...
Part of the Google Searchology event announcements from yesterday, Google announced a new way to enhance the search results. This way is called rich snippets and it gives webmasters a way to communicate richer data to Google, so they can...
The Google Wonder Wheel and search options we have seen being tested is now the real deal in Google.com. Google announced it yesterday at the Searchology event, which Danny live blogged. In fact, Matt posted a nice recap of all...
We have written about Wikipedia's dominance of the Google search results plenty of times. A new thread at WebmasterWorld asks if it is possible to beat a number one Wikipedia ranking at Google. I wanted to poll our audience to...
In this week's recap, we have your Google May webmaster report. I also polled about 400 search marketers who told me that there is 7% unemployment in the search marketing industry, while 25% are self-employed. I discussed three major issues...
In August 2005, Matt Cutts, the head of search quality at Google, launched his blog at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/. Notice, if you click on that URL, you are redirected to http://www.dullest.com/blog/. Why? Well, Matt explained that he was to switch things around,...
Like every month, we try to provide you with a Google webmaster report on what is going on with Google over the past month, in terms of the SEO perspective. You can read the April 2009 report, in case you...
A WebmasterWorld thread has a documented case of one webmaster forgetting to renew his domain name after a day or so. Then after the domain name expired, he renewed the domain and got things back up after maybe two days....
In this week's search recap, I covered several topics on search. I started off with how Google's localized search engines may have some geo targeting issues. Google ran up a $30,000 bill for some new advertiser. Google has a major...
A Google Webmasters Help thread has a webmaster upset that he lost his rankings in Google. He switched web hosting companies and days later, his Google rankings plummeted. On typical server move, you should not really lose rankings, if done...
There is a pretty funny thread for anyone who is somewhat familiar with the SEO industry. A thread at Google Webmasters Help has this SEO who goes on a rant about the nofollow and what have happened to links. In...
Over the past day or two, I have been hearing reports from webmasters and SEOs that Google's geo targeting technology has changed in a big way over in their international or localized search engines. I have one, possibly, two threads...
One of the oldest areas of unspoken SEO blogging is the SEO Code. In short, blogging (now inclusive of Twitter) is a dangerous thing in this industry. On the one hand, you want to break stories, post something unique and...
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all reported pretty poor earnings this quarter, in fact, they all made history. I talked about how Google handles expired domains. Google's Gray bar PageRank score, what does that mean? I show how you can verify...
In this week's recap, I discuss several topics after going offline for a 50 hour period. That is why I look and act incredibly tired. In any event, we discussed the changes noticed at Google over the past couple weeks....
Last week we asked if SEOs need coding capabilities based on a controversial Sphinn thread. The results are now in and I am surprised to see just about 80% of the responses said that to be considered an SEO, you...
SEOMoz created the first and second comprehensive search ranking factors document. We now have a new one, a shorter one, from HuoMah.com. Dave lists out dozens and dozens of factors and adds commentary around them. Here are some of them,...
A detailed Google Webmasters Help thread has discussion around how Google perceives affiliates and how they need to go above and beyond to warrant ranking well in the Google search results. Googler, JohnMu, answers one affiliate, as to why he...
A HighRankings Forum thread asks if one should host videos on their own server or host them on YouTube. I do a lot of videos here in my Search Buzz Video Recaps, which are weekly digests of what we covered...
Every month we report on a monthly WebmasterWorld thread that discusses the current state of the Google web search index. This month, the WebmasterWorld thread has very little to report. If you want to see last month's report click here....
A very helpful WebmasterWorld thread shares insights from a long time SEO who decided to pin two sites, competing in the same industry, with each other. He took two different strategies for each site. One site was pushed using old...
Google continues to say that Google searches are "always case insensitive. Searching for [ new york times ] is the same as searching for [ New York Times ]." But since February 2008, we have been reporting cases where Google...
Google typically cuts down the display of the title tag in the search results to no more than 65 characters. A WebmasterWorld thread asks does that mean Google won't look beyond the 65th character to determine what that page is...
A heated Sphinn thread started some controversy in the SEO industry over who is an SEO and who is not an SEO. In short, Edward Lewis wrote a piece named HTML 4 SEO Best Practices for HTML Authoring. The article...
There is a big misconception out there that to make a site rank well in search engines, you need to make your site look ugly. SEO (search engine optimization) does not have to look ugly. Yes, having a lot of...
A week ago, we polled our audience asking How Long Should It Take To Rank Well in Google? With over two-hundred responses, I thought it would be a good time to share the results with you all. How Long Does...
Reverse search engine optimization - unranking for keyword or keyword phrases you work well for. Why in the world would you want to rank less in the search engines? Well, people have their reasons. We actually covered this topic twice...
Google and the rest of the search industry had a lot of fun with April Fools' Day hoaxes, I recap them in the video. Google had a PageRank update on April 1st, no foolin. Yahoo Search updated earlier this week....
Throughout my many years (makes me sound old) in the search industry, I have heard about many filters and penalties, including a filter or penalty to prevent a site from ranking well for a specific keyword phrase. For example, if...
A WebmasterWorld thread asks how long does it take to rank well in Google? A good question, but typically, a new site might rank well in the short term and then drop off the radar until it begins ranking again....
I am in Israel now, so I am skipping the video this week. Here is the text based version of the weekly recap. Google seems to be pushing more search options on searchers through something being called Google Search Wheel....
A HighRankings Forum thread asks an interesting question. If I add links to my web page and nofollow them, does Google still read the anchor text of the link and use that in part of how they determine what my...
We all know that Google ignores the META keywords tag on pages, or at least that is what we believe and what we are told. This does not mean Google ignores other meta tags, such as the meta description, but...
A HighRankings Forum thread asks a question that likely applies to most professions on the web, what does one do when a client messes up your portfolio. For example, you provide SEO copywriting services and that content is used on...
Over a year ago, almost two years ago, there were rumors that Google would treat underscores in the URL the same way they treat hyphens in the URL, as word separators. Matt Cutts squashed the rumor back then, suggesting that...
Today's Search Video I talk quickly about the logos for the first day of Spring, and also St. Patrick's day logos. Google finally spoke about the AJAX pages. Yahoo added features to search marketing product. Google AdWords tests favorite icons....
There is an old WebmasterWorld thread on the topic of how many header tags (i.e. H1, H2) you should have on a page and how you should use it. The thread was revived yesterday when Matt Cutts of Google answered...
There are way too many sites out there that have their "Page Not Found" web pages return a 200 header status code, instead of a 404 code or a 301. The issue with showing a 200 code to spiders or...
Two days ago, I asked our readers to vote on how important it is for an SEO to specialize within a specific industry. For example, you have doctors who only work with kids (pediatricians) or doctors who specialize on the...
In a Google Webmaster Help thread, Googler, JohnMu, might be stating the obvious, but it is always good hearing it from someone who is in the know. JohnMu, answered a question about links, but in his answer, he confirmed that...
Googlers know they have to be very careful what they say in public forums when I am watching. In a recent Google Webmasters Help thread, Googler, JohnMu replied to a thread, and I am going to beat him up for...
Two recent articles sparked some discussion around the question if SEOs that specialize in an industry or two are more qualified then SEOs that do not specialize. One article was from Search Engine Land and the other from Top Rank...
Google launched a new beta for advertisers to target users based on their interests and online behaviors. Don't worry, AdSense publishers can opt out. AdSense had a major contextual relevancy bug that results in lots of lost money. Utah's House...
A WebmasterWorld thread has several different webmasters reporting seeing huge spikes in Google referrals recently and then those spikes dropping down. The first post was on February 28th, but the spikes continue to happen on random days for several webmasters....
Sometimes we forget or forget to look after basic SEO topics. The other day, I caught one of my programmers allowing both capitalized URLs and lowercase URLs result in having the same destination page. Let's take Twitter as an example,...
Please let me know if you prefer the longer videos in the comments area. Google may have updated PageRank, but the "brand push" is called the "Vince" change. I talk in detail about the "Vince" change and why webmasters are...
There are different levels of search spam. Some search spam involves creating spam on sites you control. Some spam involves injecting links into third party sites, hacking sites, infecting computers, phishing attempts and so on. Where does search spam cross...
There are many ways to price your services. In the SEO world, you can charge a monthly fee, you can charge by hour, you can charge for results, you can take a piece of the action and so on. The...
It appears Craigslist, the very popular and old school directory listing site, has added the nofollow meta tag to most of their pages. If you view the source of the listing pages, you should see <meta name="robots" content="NOARCHIVE,NOFOLLOW"> in the...
French town of Eu to change name because of Google searches from the Telegraph is getting a lot of attention. In short, a town named Eu is considering changing their name, because they feel they have a hard time ranking...
In this week's edition, I covered Yahoo's new ad tools that should help them gain support. Also, I discussed Google Search's recent "brand push." Google Blog Search is still working on a solution. I discussed in more detail, the link...
Two days ago, I ran a poll asking if SEO companies implement SEO changes or just recommend changes to be implemented. Meaning, does your SEO company normally start with coding changes and upload files to the web server. I now...
The other day we wrote about being your own SEO client isn't easy, but clearly that doesn't stop the bulk of you from working on your own solo projects. We ran a poll, asking which would you rather do? Either...
In August 2005 was the first time I saw "According To" Google results show up in the search results. Since then, they show up for very specific queries. I spotted an interesting thread, where a webmaster asked why is his...
Some SEO companies that I know of either offer recommendations in written form, to be handed off to the developers to implement, while others actually get their hands dirty and make the changes for the client. I was hoping to...
There is an interesting thread at WebmasterWorld that Google may be biased towards showing more and more "big brands" in the top Google web search results. Yea, yea - big brands have more links, more trust, more pages and bigger...
The SEO industry is a conflicted industry to work in, in many respects. Much of the public still thinks this is a form black magic, some feel the industry is packed with scam artists and some just totally don't get...
I covered a lot of news in this 10 minute video. I wish I could make them longer, but YouTube has a 10 minute limit. In this recap, I covered the Yahoo Search video ads. Google tests SearchWiki on AdWords....
I spotted a pretty funny HighRankings Forum thread where an SEO is joking around that being his/her own client is not fun. This SEO said that when you provide SEO services, it is easy to tell your client to not...
This week was SMX West, and I shared my personal favorite sessions and our new way of live blogging them. I would love to hear your feedback on our new live blogging platform, so please let me know what you...
Yesterday, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced together a new way to handle internal duplicate content issues with a new "canonical" header tag. Vanessa Fox does an excellent job explaining what it is all about in her piece at Search Engine...
A common but difficult question was asked at HighRanking Forums about the issue of targeting different countries. My advice for when it comes to targeting different countries is almost always to have two different sites on TLDs (top level domains)...
I cannot tell you how many horrible SEO articles I read at major publications. Be it from giving advice on SEO that is completely wrong and out-dated to trashing the SEO industry because of taking the wrong advice. The other...
Back from my quasi-vacation, we did text recaps the past two weeks, but I am back to the video recap now. This week we covered a Yahoo Search update. I also discussed the implications of Google's AJAX search result pages....
A HighRankings Forum thread has a very interesting topic just getting started. The thread creator asks, "What Has Changed In Seo In Last 2 Years?" This is a great question. People think that SEO tactics are always changing. You need...
I am still on that quasi vacation so, this will be a text recap, instead of the video recap. Next week, I hope to resume the videos, because I know how much you guys love looking at me. This week,...
I am currently in Israel on a quasi vacation, so I need to skip the video part of this recap. If you are in Israel and want to meet up with me, I am heading to the Jerusalem Web Professionals...
I am not a heavy user of SEO tools or toolbars, but Aaron Wall's latest tool, he named The SEO Toolbar has received a ton of feedback and buzz from the SEM industry. The day it was released, which was...
Google Operating System wrote about a new personalization feature Google is testing, named Preferred Sites. How does it works? You go to your search preferences and enter in a list of domains or sub domains that you prefer. If Google...
In this week's recap, I discuss Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz. I talk about how the recession is impacting Google. Google is testing out longer descriptions in the search results. Google Sitemaps gets credit for faster crawling and indexing. Google...
About a week ago, we ran a poll asking Who's To Credit For Faster Indexing? The options included Google Sitemaps or FeedBurner, due to the topic we were discussing. The results are now in and the majority said, Google Sitemaps,...
We have paused our text based weekly recaps, in lieu of the video edition. As always, I will sum up in a paragraph the topics I discuss at greater length in the video and provide links to more details below....
A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that folks are noticing that Yahoo Site Explorer has updated the link counts for the tool. I do not typically track these numbers, but many do. So if you do, definitely take a look and...
David Harry has an excellent write up on the SEO implications of page segmentation. In short, the piece goes over how search engines can, and probably do, look at each web page and segment the page into components. For example,...
An interesting WebmasterWorld thread discusses the phenomenon of redesigning a site, with brand new URL structure, 301 redirecting the old URLs to the new, and seeing an almost immediate boost in rankings at Google.com. In fact, WebmasterWorld moderator, minnapple, has...
A WebmasterWorld thread asks for tips on how he can get his site indexed and crawled faster by Google. The thing is, most, if not all, of these tips apply not to just Google, but any search engine, such as...
There is a nice old school SEO thread at HighRankings Forum on the old topic of ranking well for singular cases, when you are already ranking well for the plural version. For example, you are in the tops of tops...
Sometimes I seriously wonder where some of these SEO theories come from. One that caught my eye this week was found in a Google Webmaster Help thread, asking if it can hurt your SEO efforts if you do not alphabetize...
Ever since Universal Search hit Google, we have been noticing flavors of video thumbnails and static images left aligned on the Google search results. A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around this latest format and some are happy with it, while...
Remember a few months back when Google published their internal SEO guide? Well, Michael Gray asked if Social Media links is an easy way to SEO death row. Michael pointed out that on page twenty of the guide, under the...
In this week's recap, I wish our readers and viewers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009. Google updated the toolbar PageRank scores, but it seems like the search results both here and internationally were updated also. Live Search is using...
A Google Webmaster Help thread points out an interesting bug of some sort in Google. A webmaster asks about a particular site that seems to have flooded Google with tons and tons of subdomains. Since the site is already "outed,"...
If you're about to take on a prospective SEO client and they start taking the initiative on their search engine optimization (in ways you hadn't even thought of), should you proceed with the client -- especially if you're going to...
A Google Webmaster Help thread has discussion around a webmaster who noticed Google is treating his mobile site as a duplicate site to his main site. This user has his mobile site on a subdomain of m.domain.com, where his main...
Every web page should have a HEAD and BODY tag, but some people, erm, forget them. What happens if your BODY tag or other significant tags are missing? Will search engine spiders ignore the web page? Both tags are optional....
An updated WebmasterWorld thread has new reports of changes at Google.co.uk and Google.com.au. Senior member internetheaven, who keeps an eye on the Google UK results said: Google.co.uk is all over the place. The results for one of the more competitive...
Happy Holidays from the Search Engine Roundtable. I go through the various holiday logos, talk about how Googler's are working on Christmas, how they paid publishers early and how some earned less over the past holiday. In addition, I discuss...
We recently covered a comment from Googler JohnMu on if click data is used in Google for ranking purposes. Of course, John gave the typical Google response. But now we have a comment from Matt Cutts of Google at a...
A couple weeks ago, we ran a poll asking SEOs and link builders where they would prefer their external links show up on a page. Well, the results are in and as expected, most SEOs would like that link in...
In response to an upset webmaster's post in the Google Webmaster Help forums, Googler JohnMu wrote down four things that some people suspect Google of doing, which he says he has never seen since working at Google. These include: Googlers...
As the year rounds out, the search news gets a little more lax, but we still have plenty to talk about. I started off talking about how the white hats and black hats in the industry are seeing more eye...
A few weeks ago I ran a poll asking does the alt tag improve rankings in search engines. We have now received over a hundred responses from our readers, who I assume are mostly SEOs. About 80% said, yes, using...
John Honeck asked in a Google Webmaster Help thread how much more valuable is a number one ranking in Google, when compared to the likes of Yahoo. He asked it in the form of, "Is being #1 in yahoo as...
A Google Webmaster Help thread asks, can Google read links in Flash files or JavaScript? The simple answer is yes, they can. But it is not that simple. Some people want to know the answer to this question because they...
I found a fun but serious SEO mistake in a Google Webmaster Help thread that I wanted to share with you all. But I felt it would be fun, if you had the time, to share at least one of...
Last week was the SES Chicago show, we were unable to make it, but I am hearing a lot of buzz about it from the community. As someone who has been reporting on the industry for over five years now,...
There's a Google Groups thread that is discussing the ways webmasters can tell that their site is penalized by Google. In case you wanted to cover all your bases, you might want to try the tactics that they suggest you...
If you had no regard for your website and wanted it to be penalized or not ranked well, what would you do to make that happen? A WebmasterWorld thread discusses the potential issues that may relate to penalties, and I've...
I rant about Google's expansion of their AdSense for Domains product. I also go off about making liquor ads acceptable but not allowing horse racing ads. In the future SearchWiki will impact rankings and click data might be already influencing...
A Google Webmaster Help thread discusses a unique issue to a few niche sites that have no choice but to block all users from the United States while also wanting to allow GoogleBot to access the site. Since GoogleBot lives...
SEM Insights posts results of a survey that included 254 SEM professionals on all levels. Who are our SEM colleagues? How many years of experience do they have? What is their job title and income? After tallying all the results,...
In our continued coverage of the a WebmasterWorld thread started by senior member CainIV, we learn two more things. These two items are likely obvious to most, but have been confirmed (at least to CainIV) that they are true based...
The question over Google using click data, such as how many people click on your site from a Google result, how many people click click the back button and so on, as it relates to ranking web pages in Google...
Yesterday I got upset that Yahoo Search Still Not Listening to 301 Redirects. Sometime yesterday afternoon, we were getting reports that this is now resolved. An updated WebmasterWorld thread has the individual upset with how was handling those redirects in...
This is crazy already, we reported this time and time again. Yahoo Search is not always listening to a simple 301 redirect. We reported this in September and the issue continued to linger on month to month. In fact, many...
For many many cases, when people are having issues with their site's doing well in the search engines - they sometimes overlook the obvious. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen or heard that webmasters are complaining...
The topic of does domain registration impact your search engine rankings is nothing new. We have covered this topic here at least a handful of times, especially since Google became a registrar. But a new WebmasterWorld thread has several case...
Google got me angry when they called gift giving at this time, "inappropriate." It is hard time, but SEMs stick together. Google updated webmaster tools with enhanced features. Google fixed an IFrame spam classifier bug. Google Blog Search's link command...
We know Google recommends using alternative text for your images. But does that mean your rankings will improve in the search engines if you use the ALT attribute? That is the question at WebmasterWorld. Forget about what is "best practices"...
This is a topic we covered in the past, but I had the opportunity to remind you all, that Google prefers you use a server status code of 503, when your site is going down for maintenance. Googler, JohnMu, reminds...