Category: Search Engine Watch

Panda? Penguin? No. Understanding Google’s Vince update – which gave more preference to “big brands” in Google’s search results – is perhaps the most important update that you can understand, to help get your SEO programs on track.

With consumer habits changing fast in favor of mobile, mobile will begin to effectively monetize. Use the power of story to demonstrate the value of mobile advertising – and how it will help bring your clients closer to that pot of gold.

SEO is currently in a “flight to quality”. This is what most columnists and bloggers mean by the “new” SEO. Sure, it’s similar to the old SEO, but now there’s a greater emphasis on quality and avoiding excessive, large-scale, low-quality SEO tactics.

As Google continues its worldwide dominance of search, we take a quick glance at the major events since a couple of kids in Stanford started their BackRub service. And who better to help us out than the Greatest Living American – Stephen Colbert.

For local businesses wanting to advertise, Google has announced that relevant ads will appear to users after they perform a search, placed at the bottom of the screen that includes title, ad text, and a link to get directions to the business.

Moz has released the 2013 Local Search Ranking Factors. When it comes to overall ranking factors, page place signals are considered the most important. This includes things like appropriate categories, keywords in business titles and proximity.

For some time now, Google has been sending notifications to site owners about manual webspam actions. But now site owners can check Google Webmaster Tools at any time to see if they’ve incurred a manual penalty, Google has announced.

If you have websites that are getting more mobile traffic, yet are either slow to load or not properly optimized, Google is issuing new guidelines to help you ensure those sites are loading quickly and optimally for those using smartphones.

Many webmaster fear low-quality links could hurt their Google traffic and rankings. So if webmasters are following the proper steps on bad backlinks, can those links – especially if they were generated by competitor – still hurt your website?

Custom events require equal parts strategy and technical know-how, and will unearth troves of user engagement and conversion data. Here’s a guide to 10 Google Analytics custom events, how to use them, and which powerful insights they can reveal.

Google now calls links in press releases “unnatural” and is mandating nofollowing them. Even though Google took away the anchor text links in press releases (and guest posts and articles), there are still press release optimization opportunities.

Google’s new stance on guest posts tells us what we already know about creating good content. We have to play it smart. We have to put in the work. And we have to produce something that has inherent value. Otherwise we’re going about it wrong.

Facebook announced Graph Search in January and now it’s available to all users with settings set to U.S. English. Facebook is also starting to retire its “who can look up my timeline by name?” feature, which it said it would do so in December 2012.

Love the ’90s? They’re back, baby! Searches for many of the popular styles of 1990s are up significantly this year, and some marketers are already embracing these fly fashions through their PPC campaigns to increase revenue. Cha-ching!

There is a widespread belief that Google Webmaster Tool search query can be dismissed as worthless and inaccurate. Wrong. Downloading, categorizing, and analyzing trends over time is the best way to get the most out of what Google is giving us.

Rank, although an important metric, can become confusing and seemingly meaningless for the CMO who also needs to see revenue related to rank. Earned media initiatives can reach further than ever, enabling you to drive awareness, demand, and revenue.

Bing Ads has released a flurry of new and improved features of late. Here’s a recap of some of the biggest improvements and new features, as well as some small but important changes you might have missed, plus some things in the works now.

The Android Device Manager feature, which is similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone app, lets users of Android smartphones and tablets locate and remotely wipe the device if it is lost or stolen, a feature long called for by Android users.

A new Pixability study finds that the top 100 global brands use YouTube to build an engaged audience and drive business results. One key lesson: video marketing is as important as video production. Here are seven tips for stellar YouTube results.

Google has introduced a new feature where searchers can sometimes find results tagged under the title “In-depth articles”, which appear in a separate block complete with a large thumbnail image, title, snippets, the source, and the source logo.