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...
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...
I so love finding these gems in the deep areas of forum discussion. That being said, let me share with you what I found. A Google Groups thread has a response from Matt Cutts of Google, basically explaining their was...
A Cre8asite Forums thread discusses the ramifications of giving out SEO for a fee on a one-time basis rather than having a long-term consulting project. Not all individuals are equipped to handle lengthy engagements nor do they really have the...
Senior WebmasterWorld member, CainIV, has been running an experiment for just about two months now. The experiment is to test to see how changing your navigation links from "home," to a keyword, to another keyword, can impact your rankings. Yes,...
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I am posting the video early in celebration of the special weekend. I spoke for a while on why SEO's should be careful when using a site command. I also spoke a while about link building companies...
Many SEOs use the site command to see how healthy their site is in a particular search engine. So you plug in site:www.mydomain.com in a search engine and the search engine will return the number of pages they have indexed...
A Google Groups thread has a webmaster asking if it helps for him to rotate content on his site. He believes it might help for three reasons: Revised content will encourage GoogleBot to recrawl his pages more often.Revised content makes...
In this week's recap, Yang steps down from Yahoo. Google launches SearchWiki. What are Google search results like. Google launches new keyword tool. Google doesn't cap AdSense. AdWords tests new interface. Yahoo lets you block more domains. Google splashes ads...
NetworkWorld reports that the State of Washington has sued an SEO firm for a variety of infractions, including making claims that they can increase traffic to clients' websites, falsely claiming affiliations with other marketers, making claims that customer service representatives...
Over the course of the past few months, I have hearing buzz from the forums and from people in the SEO industry that Google is dropping pages out of their index. How do these people know? Well, when they do...
A Google Groups thread has discussion around how to properly use the alt attribute and title attribute for your web page images. Of course, Google recommends that you make sure to make them as useful for the end users. So...
Scott Hendison has a dilemma: one of his clients won't take any of his advice. I'm sure many SEOs have run into the same sort of scenario in their lifetimes, where the SEO gives good strategies -- and many of...
In this weeks video recap, I covered the major news that Google's search engine had major quality issues and had to revert back the algorithm changes over the weekend. Part of that, we gave you an update on the current...
Want to be an SEO? Well, we asked SEOs what degrees upcoming SEOs and SEMs should obtain. The overwhelming number of responses were for marketing and programming degrees. Here is the breakdown of the 265 submissions: :: Marketing said 126...
Lisa Barone writes a great piece at the We Build Pages blog about how you'll become a good SEO by actually doing SEO, not by reading SEO strategy on all those blogs you subscribe to. It's simply not good enough...
I am a bit under the weather in this video recap, but I hope you like it. I discuss the Halloween logos from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Live.com, DogPile, FriendFeed, and other search related sites. I talk about Google's changes to...
A Google Groups thread discusses a classic SEO challenge, passing link popularity for tracking URLs. Honestly, I cannot sum up the issue better than the original poster: Our site uses query string variables in our URL's to track traffic and...
The Online Marketing for Marketers blog has a goo blueprint that you should adhere to if you're looking for a successful search engine optimization campaign. Your blueprint should include: * Defined goals * Keyword and competitive research * A content...
There has always been this myth that Google and other search engines cannot crawl or process more than 100 links on a single web page or document. That truth is that Google and other search engines can and do crawl...
There is a discussion on Sphinn about WordPress, probably one of the biggest blog platforms on the Internets, and meanwhile, it doesn't even rank in the top 10 for "blog" or "create a blog." Does Google not like WordPress since...
Raise your hand if you're a religious SEO. I'm sure you've faced battles and challenges that were hard to overcome, especially since your site is religious in nature and the traffic and links don't appear to be there -- for...
A HighRankings Forum thread asks which type of degree should a person looking to go into SEO or SEM pursue? The logical answers, at least to me, would be either marketing, programming, maybe math or statistics. Copy editors might want...
Google said, loud and clear, the first click free program can be used for web search. Google improves Analytics and ties in AdSense data. Google hosted their third webmaster chat event, I was unable to attend. AdWords is taking up...
US law requires an age verification page for when someone visits a web page about pornography, alcohol or other adult oriented pages. But this comes with a challenge for webmasters who want to make sure those pages are accessible to...
I'm inventing a whatchamacallit device that will enable me to run in circles, cut a chicken, and light up a lamp... or not. But what happens if you were enlisted to help someone optimize a website that performs activities that...
A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around an old patent from IBM named Prediction of query difficulty for a generic search engine. In short, the patent describes ways to determine how difficult a specific keyword is. Now, the patent was...
A High Rankings Forum member questions the actions of current SEOs and wonders if the real SEO "doers" are actually working behind closed doors. He says that the SEOs who consistently tell secrets are putting themselves in danger -- the...
Google's JohnMu from the Webmaster Central team has done a blog post named First Click Free for Web Search where he clarifies that the First Click Free program is allowed to be used for web search as well. In short,...
Beu has done an outstanding job testing how Google truly handles Flash indexing and crawling. To take you back, Google began indexing Flash in July 2008 and then we had a follow up post on it in late August. Let...
Stoney DeGeyter has written an insightful piece on Search Engine Guide on what you should expect from your SEO consultant. Obviously, depending on your goals, this may differ, but the ideas are the same. He explains that traffic is something...
In August of 2006, Rohit Bhargava coined the term SMO for social media optimization. Now search engine optimization has been around a little longer than that, but where did it come from? According to Bob Heyman, in a guest post...
A WebmasterWorld thread shows how a webmaster is sad that his competitor out ranks him. This webmaster is upset because he feels his competitor is outranking him due to the number of complaints his competitor has. Since he has so...
Happy New Year, it was Rosh Hashanah the other day. Google did a PageRank update, while Yahoo Search updated their algorithm, and Microsoft might have updated. Google Blog search has a home page now. Google turned 10 and let you...
The topic of Google Still Showing Different Results Base on Case Sensitivity seems to still be an issue every now and then. Again, Google says they do not differentiate results base on case sensitivity: Google searches are NOT case sensitive....
Yahoo Site Explorer seems to have pushed out their beta design to everyone now. The new look, is not just visual, it also contains these new data points: + Site URL + Number of pages known + Number of pages...
On one Crea8site Forums thread, Barry Welford asks if size is a factor in SEO success. It seems from the results that bigger sites (1000+ pages, according to him) have biggest (45%) success. Smaller sites could still be improved upon,...
Google told us not to rewrite dynamic URLs into static URLs. Google ripped of their Indian publishers, by accident. Google is loving them books in the search results. How often should you submit a reconsideration request? How quick is Google...
Andy Beard started a Google Groups thread asking why Google seems to be handling tagged pages (tag cloud results) in a "fairly random fashion." Andy goes through examples of how Google sometimes indexes these pages, sometimes shows a cache page,...
The Google blog has officially said that they prefer that in most cases, you should not use rewrites to change your dynamic URLs to static looking URLs. In my opinion, this is a major 180° on basic SEO practices. SEO...
Live Search had a major update. Google launched their new real time quality score. Google doesn't believe in a duplicate content penalty. Google updated a patent, and we learn a ton. Google Webmaster Tools is generating fake HTTP errors, while...
WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, posted a thread at WebmasterWorld discussing an updated Google patent named Information retrieval based on historical data. This is one of the more popular Google documents over the years, where much of the Sandbox theories came from....
Last year, Matt McGee wrote the 2007 version of 21 reasons why you need a break from SEO. This year, Matt shares 21 more reasons why you may need to take your SEO break. Reasons include: * searching for social...
There's a big problem in the SEO industry and that's the fact that people are not using SEO terms correctly. Jill Whalen has written a great post on Search Engine Land to this effect -- she says that due to...
You're an SEO. You are tweaking client pages and billing your clients at the end of the month. Is there a standard industry practice of what you should actually put on your client bills, such as work completed? There is...
Friday, Google posted a blog post named Demystifying the "duplicate content penalty". The blog post basically describes what many of us have been saying for a long time. Google does not typically penalize for duplicate content, but duplicate content can...
Google's Mayer talks about the future of search. How do those Google Sitelinks really work? When should I resubmit my site to Google? How do I rank my images in Google? When I move my site, how do I redirect?...
Want to see some industry figures dressed up in comics as ... erm, squares? Well, if you do, go to the Ranked Hard blog and check it out. You'll find a nude Vanessa fox, a Jim Boykin ninja, a guy...
Elections are at the top of mind in the United States and that means campaigning. Search Marketing is now a proven and important avenue for politicians to work in, to promote their brands, name, campaign and ultimately win the election....
Let's say you have a very dynamic web site and you also generate your meta keywords dynamically. Could you be penalized (or receive a warning) if those meta keywords are very similar? In a nutshell, yes, though there's a 'debate'...
Check out screen captures of the new quality score in place. Google AdWords added geographic reporting. Google launches Chrome the browser, learn where to submit feedback, why is the PageRank indicator missing and will it win the browser wars? Private...
A common issue for e-commerce sites is what to do when an item goes out of stock. Do you delete the page? Do you redirect the page somewhere else? Do you just tell the user the item is out of...
Sometimes it's better to do SEO for a site before it's launched. Such is the case for a High Rankings Forum member who is looking to build up his site's presence before it's actually live for the masses. How do...
A High Rankings Forum member who has been working on a yearlong SEO agreement is now facing new management with his client and they're requesting a refund for services (mostly because some project deliverables weren't actually delivered). Should this SEO...
A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Yahoo Site Explorer has done a major update to their linkage data reports. Most webmasters are reporting huge drops in the number of links reported today versus the days before. The linkage drops are...
A Google Groups thread asks if Google can crawl and index UTF-8 encoded URLs. The quick answer is yes, Google can crawl and index these URLs. Google's JohnMu provided a link to the Google search results as proof, showing Google...
A High Rankings Forum member has run into a bit of a rut with one of his clients who was "'brainwashed" by an SEO that editing the meta tags (and repeating keywords) would result in great rankings. The original SEO...
I was in Boston for a bit this week, I have some pictures in the video. Google Suggest is now the defaul behavior on Google.com but how does that impact SEMs? Google AdWords make the quality score, more real time....
Tamar wrote a piece named Do Search Penalties Worry You? I had her add a poll asking SEOs if they are scared of search engine penalties. The 98 responses are back and it is about split. 56% are afraid of...
In July, we reported that Google is now able to better crawl and index content within Flash files. Since then, time has gone on but most SEOs continue to recommend that you stay away from Flash when building a search...
A WebmasterWorld thread has early discussion on the topic of what to do about a penalized site. Should the webmaster destroy the domain and start on a new one or should he/she clean up the site and wait for Google...
Black Hat/White Hat: Playing Dirty with SEO Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2008 Wednesday, August 20, 2008 4:15p - 5:30p Speakers: Jill Whalen, HighRankings.com Bruce Clay, BruceClay.com Dave Naylor, Bronco.co.uk Todd Friesen, "on sabbatical" Greg Boser, 3 Dog Media Moderator:...
Google's search share surpasses 70%. Take our Google penalty poll. What is the deal with Google and ranking software? Google get personal on personalizes results. Google shuts down FeedBurner ads and opens up AdSense for feeds. Google Reader improves sharing...
You can clearly search and find that many people think that SEO is dying a painful death, but do you know exactly how that will happen? Well, Ian Lurie decided to speculate how the SEO bubble will pop and proposes...
Michael Gray writes an interesting post about that teaching advanced link building and PageRank will never die. In the article, he explains that everyone who learns about optimization techniques are at different levels; some are more advanced and may consider...
Over the past couple weeks, we reported about two issues: (1) Did Google Stop Crawling Blogger Blogs on Personalized Domains? (2) Google Bloggers Having Sitemap File & Continued Crawling Issues? Google seems to have resolved both issues. The Google Groups...
There is a very large discussion at Sphinn around a Search Engine Journal post named How to Get Rid of Multiple Subpages & Not Get Penalized. The discussion is around the topics of using different techniques when removing or redirecting...
At WebmasterWorld, a forum member is baffled by the fact that his homepage isn't ranking for a relevant search term; instead, one of the internally-linked pages rank. According to the forum member, the homepage has the right keywords within the...
A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the topic of title tags. Now this title tag discussion is not a typical boring thread. In this thread, some webmasters and SEOs have been observing that longer title tags are returning higher rankings...
The Olympics start today and Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and the Search Engine Roundtable have special logos up for the event. Google launched Insights for Search. Google begins to track your web surfing via DoubleClick cookies. Yahoo Search had a major...
A week or so ago, I wrote a piece named Are Links From Blogs As Valuable These Days? In short, some SEOs are now against buying or obtaining links from most blogs. They feel that Google may be devaluing the...
There are threads at Google Groups and DigitalPoint Forums with multiple reports of Google not crawling Blogger hosted blogs, that are on custom or private domains (i.e. not on blogspot.com domains). Many have reported that the Googlebot crawling has stopped...
In a High Rankings Forums thread, forum members discuss whether they meet with their SEO clients or not. It must depend on how the business is structured (and if the client is local), but in the latter case, if the...
In May I ran an informal poll asking Would You Buy a Link With a NoFollow Attribute? In short, a nofollow attribute is an HTML attribute you add to a hyperlink that tells the search engines that you do not...
There is an excellent paid only WebmasterWorld thread on the topic of why would the best SEOs decide to take on client work, as opposed to building out their own ideas and cashing in on those ideas. The rational is,...
There is a world of SEOs who continually search Google to track how their keyword phrases are ranking. But they do not just search the main Google.com page, they search each and every Google data center by IP address. A...
Google Webmaster Tools is now reporting "too many redirects" within Sitemaps files. A WebmasterWorld thread has reported the warnings back last week. I have finally hunted down a screen shot of such an error: The only way to see this...
Happy anniversary World Wide Web. I chat a bit more about the Google Yo-Yo. Google processes many links per day, many. Google tests related searches inline with search results. Microsoft does BrowseRank. Google updates AdWords Search. Yahoo adds search marketing...
Kevin Gibbons, UK blogger and apparently a fan of the TV show Dragon's Den, blogged about the importance of a high ranking and how people would pay to buy sites that rank that well, especially for competitive terms. In this...
How does one who may sell SEO services in the future give away information without giving away too much information (and fearing that the client will run away with the proposed strategies and implement them himself/herself?) That's a difficult situation...
A Cre8asite Forums forum member asks the community about their biggest pieces of advice as it relates to search engine optimization. What are those tips? When you start doing SEO, write down every thing you do and monitor results closely....
Last week, one of the smaller SMX conferences, SMX Local and Mobile, was held in San Francisco. We didn't cover it here at Search Engine Roundtable, because we know other bloggers would be able to pitch in. That's where my...
Shimon Sandler wrote a controversial post about the options available to sites who cannot actually make code changes to optimize their site. He explains that you can build links, and that's perfectly legitimate as it's called "off site optimization." The...
About 15 days ago, I reported on the Google Yo-Yo Effect. This yo-yoing is a lot different then the typical ups and downs of Google's rankings. I know many of you are going to say, Google's results always differ. Trust...
SEOAly, an up-and-comer blogger who has been writing some really great blog posts lately, has shared the reasons why "SEO consultation" is ruining the reputation of an entire industry. In the piece, she explains that SEO is not about implementation...
Google is updating toolbar PageRank. Google shows off a kid being educated. Google updates cache design, dates and explains the importance. Google time stamps Sitelinks and Yahoo makes their Quick Links more like Google. Does Google forgive and forget penalties?...
Would linking to your landing pages be bad for your organic rankings? This is the question posed on Cre8asite Forums, where a webmaster wonders the benefits of possibly linking to a completely different type of page (in terms of layout,...
A Google Groups thread has discussion around a site that was hacked and because of it, now has many broken (dead) hyper links. The question then came up, would Google penalize a site that had broken links? The simple answer...
The very smart Sarah Bird at SEOmoz has recently blogged about the importance of managing client expectations when working in this area. She says that it's normal for people to overpromise and underdeliver. If you run into a client who...