Google Is Looking Into Rap Genius Linking Scheme Masked As Affiliate Program
Yesterday, John Marbach exposed the popular music side, Rap Genuis, for starting an “affiliate” program in order to get unnatural links pointing to their web site. After it was exposed, Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, said, “we’re aware and looking into…
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5 “Foundations” Of SEO That Were Torched In 2013
The basics of SEO haven’t changed much in the last 15 years. If you followed the mantra of creating good content and obtaining quality links, they still haven’t changed… or have they? Here are five SEO “foundations” that were absolutely torched in 2013. If you are still counting on any of these,…
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Matt Cutts Implies Google Is Aware Of SEOs Bribing Bloggers
On Friday night, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts tweeted a link to a Gawker story named Shady Marketing Firms Are Still Quietly Bribing Bloggers. Matt said, “we’re taking action on hundreds of buyers, dozens of sites, & dozens of spammy writers,” in reference…
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Google Showing Missing Keywords On Long Tail Queries
Alex Chitu noticed that Google is now showing the keywords Google did not match on for your long tail search. The example below shows how Google did not match on a specific keyword within the search phrase and noted that under the search results snippe…
Google Still Working On Promoting Subject-Specific Authorities In Search Results
Remember the video Google’s Matt Cutts released in May, talking about the ten future Google SEO changes? One of those topics was about authority boost for authors and sites that are an authority on a topic? Well, Google is still working on that. In TWiG, This Week in Google, episode 227,…
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“We Want, But We Won’t” — Don’t Be Your Web Marketing’s Worst Enemy
My wife and I had a conversation with our daughter the other day about responsibility. The gist was she wanted to do something that interfered with commitments she already made. We talked to her about how you have to honor your commitments, even when t…
The Intersection Of SEO & Web Design
As technology advances and web usage evolves, so do SEO best practices. Web designers now have more choices and technologies available than ever before. As we enter 2014, I expect we will continue to see advances in web design that bring even more opti…
Confirmed: Google Reduces Authorship Rich Snippets In Search Results
The head of search spam at Google, Matt Cutts, has confirmed with us that Google has applied a 15% reduction in the amount of rich snippets displayed in the search results. Matt Cutts announced at PubCon a couple months ago that this would happen, sayi…
Google Denies A Major Update On December 17th
Yesterday, most of the Google search results tracking tools showed major changes in rankings within Google’s search results but during my analysis of webmaster communication within the discussion forums and social space, I saw very little discussion around changes in rankings at Google. Then,…
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Google’s Matt Cutts On Search Spammers: “We Want To Break Their Spirits”
In episode number 227 of This Week in Google on the TWiT network, Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts answered some questions from the hosts Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis. In one question, Matt explained that Google aims to “break the spirits” of spammers in order to encourage…
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A Look Back On One Crazy Year Of Link Building
If 2012 was the year of Google Algorithm updates — Moz counted 37 big ones compared to the 15 in 2013 and 21 in 2011 — 2013 was the year that link building suffered from a serious identity crisis. It was sidelined, stretched, swindled and spit back out again more times than your average…
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SPONSOR MESSAGE: SMX Biggest Search Geek Contest
Are you the geek to beat? Prove your SEM chops and win a trip for two to SMX West plus your choice of an iPad Mini, Sony PlayStation 4, or an Xbox One. Just answer the most questions in the least amount of time to win. Test your marketing intelligence and see how you stack […]
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5 Increasingly Commodified SEO Solutions That Confuse B2B Marketers
While discussing the changes in the search industry with a B2B marketing colleague earlier this month, he mentioned that many marketing professionals may be confused about SEO, particularly when it comes to advising clients on search initiatives. Jargon, conflicting “expert” opinion,…
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Google’s Matt Cutts: 25-30% Of The Web’s Content Is Duplicate Content & That’s Okay
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, posted a video today about duplicate content and the repercussions of it within Google’s search results. Matt said that somewhere between 25% to 30% of the content on the web is duplicative. Of all the web pages and content across the internet,…
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Google Squashes Backlinks.com, Another Link Network Outed By Google’s Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, announced on Twitter that Google has gone after another link network, this one is named Backlinks.com. Like with Anglo Rank, the link network Google outed the week prior, Matt Cutts took a line from their marketing material and then said “Au…
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Secrets Of Successful Enterprise SEO Part 1: Operational Planning For SEO
Believe it or not, one of the most challenging aspects of taking on the responsibility of an enterprise site is not determining what needs to be done. There is usually no dearth of opportunities to improve things and no end to the long list of tasks that need to get done — yes, even at…
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4 Recent Changes To SEO That Are Vital To Holiday Retail Strategy
It’s the holiday season again, and while certain sectors may be winding down for a relaxing month of festivities, online sellers are revving up their retail strategy. It’s a crucial, make-or-break time of year for retailers to excel in customer service, gift-wrapping services, and, of…
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Google Webmaster Tools Upgrades Structure Data Markup Errors Report
Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, Mariya Moeva, announced on the Google Webmaster blog a new update to Google Webmaster Tools where they now show items with errors in the Structured Data dashboard. This can help webmasters better debug issues they are having with their structured data…
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Google’s Matt Cutts: Guest Blogging Abuse & Spam On The Rise
Google’s Matt Cutts posted a video today on the things one should avoid when doing guest blogging. The main point he made was that guest blogging, on a whole, is “growing” in terms of the spam and abuse he sees in the guest blogging space. Now, if you are guest blogging, Matt…
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The Brave New World of SEO: Beyond Websites
We hear it regularly – the death knell tolling for SEO. In the past several years, we’ve been bombarded by a barrage of change in organic search, from Penguin to Panda to Hummingbird, from inbound link penalties to [not provided]. Let’s face it: the only constant in search is…
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