Google’s EU Censorship Removes Links For More Than Just Names On Their Own
It turns out that those in the European Union asking Google to “forget” links they don’t like that appearing for searches on their names are also getting links removed for any search that involves their names and additional words, rather than just their names alone. Until now, it…
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Study: Why, When & How Often Google Indexes Individual Tweets
Figuring out when and why Google indexes a specific Tweet has long been a conundrum and point of angst for many SEOs. Of course Google does index Tweets, but the methodology has seemed like a total crapshoot — until now. The good folks over at Stone Temple Consulting have attempted to crack…
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Experiment Shows Up To 60% Of “Direct” Traffic Is Actually Organic Search
Everyone knows that browsers don’t always report where visitors came from when they arrive at a website. When they don’t report where they were in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) referrer header, often the traffic is considered “Direct” — which really means,…
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5 Bad Link Building Habits To Break Now
For those who have been in the SEO industry for a while, you may remember the glory days of link building — you simply submitted your site/article/address/name, etc., and had 100 links within 24 hours. That sure was awesome. Unfortunately, those days are over — yet for many, bad link…
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How To Integrate SEO Ranking Tools With Analytics Tools
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools and more general web analytics solutions are both critically important for site analysis, but they don’t often work well together. This is a how-to guide for integrating SEO ranking tools with analytics tools. The main benefits of integrating SEO ranking…
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SEO Should Not Be Held To An ROI Target — Here’s Why
Anyone who invests dollars into a marketing channel is expecting to see a return on investment (ROI) from that marketing channel. Those who invest in SEO are probably expecting the same. But I challenge this thought and dare to say SEO should not be re…
The 4 Truths About Link Building
The world of link building hasn’t just evolved over the last couple of years — it has been completely turned upside down. In essence, what in many ways was once a relatively easy business has become a formidable venture to maintain. Just a few years ago, finding sources to build links…
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The EU’s Right To Be Forgotten Is A Mess & How Google’s Making It Worse
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” the saying goes. There are plenty of good intentions with the EU’s Right To Be Forgotten mandate, as well as Google’s attempt to meet new obligations under it. Things are still going to hell regardless. Thanks to the new…
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Head Of Google’s Web Spam Team Matt Cutts Is Going On Leave
Google’s Matt Cutts – who holds the title of “distinguished engineer” — is taking a break from his duties as Google’s chief web spam fighter. Cutts has announced on his personal blog that he’s taking leave through October. It will be the longest break Cutts…
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What Local Business Leaders Must Know About Search Engines And SEO
When I write about SEO and business success, I often realize that I’ve touched upon a point that merits a column of it’s own. This is one such column. It will focus on the fact that online and offline marketing have grown inextricably codependent — especially for local businesses….
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Google Hits Poland Again With Link Network Penalties
Four months after Google’s first link network penalty in Poland, Google has targeted an additional two Polish link networks this morning. Google’s Karolina Kruszynska, a spam fighter, posted on Twitter that the most recent wide spread manual action targeted two link networks in Poland:…
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Panda Strikes Again: Yahoo Voices & The Yahoo Contributor Network Closing Down
Yahoo has announced another round of product cuts and changes, all part of what it calls a continued effort on “furthering our focus.” The most notable cut announced today is the upcoming closure of both Yahoo Voices (voices.yahoo.com) and the Yahoo Contributor Network…
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Former Googler: Links That Change Are Trusted Less By Google’s Algorithms
A former member of the Google search quality and web spam team, Pedro Dias, said publicly on Twitter yesterday that “Google is less likely to trust a link once it has changed from the first time it was seen.” So if you changed the anchor text or URL path of the link, the value and…
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VIDEO + SLIDESHOW: Managing Search, Managing Change
About the only constant in the life of a search marketer is change. Changing algorithms, changing products and features, new online marketing channels… but there are other important changes that are vital to manage, such as developing new sites and acquisitions, handling corporate…
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Survey: Mobile Dominates Vacation Search Queries
Local SEO provider Placeable, which competes with a range of companies in the increasingly crowded national-local segment, has released new travel-related survey data (n=1,000). The study’s findings, at least as presented, don’t tell an entirely coherent story about user behavior…
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A Glimpse Into The Future Of Search
In the process of working on the upcoming third edition of The Art of SEO, I had the pleasure of discussing the Future of Search with Ramez Naam. Ramez is a futurist, a best-selling author (check out his science fiction novels Nexus and Crux and his newest nonfiction book, The Infinite Resource:…
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Google Notifying Publishers For Right To Be Forgotten Removals
Now that Google has been removing results from the European versions of Google in response to the EU’s Right To Be Forgotten requirements, many webmasters are now receiving notifications of these removals. Last night, around 10pm EST, I received a notification for a site I have verified…
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Breaking Down Page Speed Events For SEO Gain
It’s important to get clear the value of changes in terms of SEO impact before allocating in-demand tech time to work on fixes. To throw up just one example: if your page returns in less than one second what impact will fixing render-blocking CSS have …
Back To Basics: 5 Fundamentals Of Link Building That Will Never Go Away
SEO is a totally different beast today than it was just a few years ago, and many would argue that link building is the aspect that’s suffered the biggest beating since then. Yes, the process of link building today is nothing like how we did it in years past — but the qualities that…
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Google Webmaster Tools Beta International Targeting Reports
Google is currently beta testing a new international targeting report within Google Webmaster Tools. The new International Targeting report is designed to help webmasters who have international sites and use href lang markup understand common mistakes …