Author: Jessica Lee
Is there such thing as an algorithmic-resistant SEO strategy? Does Google owe us rankings? Is SEO just a “reactive” discipline? These are some of the questions on the minds of marketers and site owners in light of the impact of Google’s recent Penguin update, and other impactful updates in the past year.
While the answers to those questions aren’t always black and white, the approach to a successful SEO strategy is. In this article, we sit down with Bruce Clay to talk about Google’s mission with these types of updates and how to approach SEO the safe way. While it may take a lot more work and investment, White Hat SEO proves to the only way to stay out of the line of fire of Google’s Web spam updates.
“There is no SEO strategy that is evergreen and successful at the same time with regards to tactics,” says Bruce Clay. “It’s all in the approach.” The only strategy site owners can continue to count on time and time again is how a site owner approaches SEO. Read More
Author: Virginia Nussey
A Penguin attack has dropped your pages down the pecking order and low-quality links are to blame. You need an action plan to get you back into Google's good graces. Here you'll get an understanding of the Google Penguin Update and Google's efforts against over-optimization and how to clear your site from resulting penalties.
On April 24, 2012, Google made a significant change to its search ranking algorithm. The change, now known as the Penguin Update, improves the detection of ranking manipulation based on link value and downgrades a site's rankings in turn.
Following is our methodology for identifying links that are hurting your rankings, requesting removal and tracking the process for your own management flow and for communicating your efforts to Google. Execute our four-step plan to remove the damaging links in Penguin's cross hairs. Read More
Author: Matt Slater
In June of 2011, Google announced the release of rel="author", a tag which can be added to any article written on the Web and will enhance listings within Google Search and News results.
Google can give an element of trust to links from marked up articles consequently providing a scalable measure of authority. Imagine if every online article was marked up with author tags - trust could be measured against each profile and be given a score relative to authority on the Web.
While it appears that in Google’s ideal world, each and every article would be marked up, there has to be a carrot dangled in front of online authors to give them reason to markup their content. And the chance to stand out in the SERPs appears to be that carrot. Read More
Each month, our developers make improvements to our SEO tools to ensure users have a more efficient experience. From this point forward, we’re including our developer notes every month in our SEO Newsletter so you can stay up-to-date on improvements to the SEO tools. Find it next month in its permanent home on this page, under the news sections.
For this issue we've compiled the updates to the SEOToolSet V5 from the last year on its own page. Click through for full details. Read More
Stakes are rising in the battle of the Internet tech giants and, of late, the weapons of choice for Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Facebook are intellectual property lawsuits.
Yahoo! added to a claim of intellectual property theft by Facebook, bringing the number of allegedly infringed patents from 10 to 12.
Facebook countersued and brokered a deal to share rights to Microsoft's patents, including 275 patents Microsoft recently purchased from AOL.
Records showed that in the first quarter of 2012, Google and Facebook spent all-time highs on lobbying in Washington D.C. Google spent $3.76 million compared to Microsoft, which spent $1.8 million during the quarter. Google's lobbying strategy included SOPA and online advertising regulation. Ahead of its IPO, Facebook hired more influential lobbyists to focus on issues including Internet privacy regulations, "do not track" issues and patent reform.
Google meanwhile is fighting antitrust suits on two fronts, the European Union and the U.S. Both the Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission are investigating if Google abused local competition laws.
We're going to let you in on a big secret behind Bruce Clay, Inc.'s marketing strategy and public relations. The goal of our communications: submission by information overload.
We practice a sort of shock-and-awe strategy. Our aim is to unleash a flood of search engine optimization knowledge until the audience raises a red flag of surrender.
In the newsletter, in our blog and at our training course and SEO workshops, we lay out our SEO methodology in all its complexity and detail. By the time you've wrapped your head around everything involved in the art and science of SEO, the one thing you know for certain is that there's far too much for any one person to take one.
It's not that you're not capable of performing search engine optimization site audits, remedying hindrances to optimal rankings, and staying up on new feature releases and changes to SERP displays and ranking factors; but, doing it right requires resources, including the priceless resource of experience, manpower and knowledge.
If you decide that you want to accumulate the knowledge and skills of SEO for yourself or within your organization, that's where the highest caliber SEO training comes in. You can take your SEO program to full speed from a starting point anywhere between zero and sophisticated.
After studying SEO with Bruce Clay, you will have been exposed to the inner workings of our client services, including:
- The tools we use and the data we collect.
- On-page optimization practices.
- Quality link-development tactics.
- Leveraging blended search real estate with multimedia assets.
There are opportunities all year and around the globe to attend SEO training with Bruce Clay.
Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility was approved, paving the way for the Internet giant to extend its intentions in mobile technology.
Facebook is on a photo-sharing kick (last month it was the acquisition of Instagram) as it acquires employees of Lightbox. The team at Lightbox announced it would now be building products for Facebook’s mobile users.
LinkedIn announced it acquired SlideShare for about $119 million. According to the post, the two companies recently described their relationship like that of “chocolate and peanut butter,” which makes this acquisition a pretty sweet deal.
Microsoft saw the departure of two sales execs, Richard Dunmall and Marc Bresseel. While Dunmall is leaving the company, Bresseel is reported to be staying within the organization.
Yahoo!’s been wrapped up in a bit of a scandal over the newly hired and then quickly departed CEO Scott Thompson, whose resume has been reported to have false education credentials. Both Thompson and the director who hired him, Patti Hart, have resigned.
Groupon’s stock plummeted late April with the announcement of two board members’ resignation: Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Accel Partner’s Kevin Efrusy. Groupon announced their replacements straightaway.
Days before the Facebook IPO was set to start trading on NASDAQ, Facebook grew its shares by 25 percent. The stock opened trading on May 18 at $38 per share, making it the third largest IPO in history. However concerns about the initial price setting and the stock's availability for purchase have been raised by federal regulators as share prices have consistently dropped since the offering.
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Bruce Clay Europe created an infographic that visualizes Facebook's initial valuation and compares it to other major corporations as well as the annual GDP of several companies.
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IRCE, the world's largest e-commerce conference is happening in Chicago June 5 to 8.
Online Strategy Summit in Boulder, Col., takes place June 10. Entrepreneurs interested in learning about Internet marketing strategies are welcomed.
SMX Advanced will be held in Seattle, Wash., on June 5 and 6. The conference is followed by in-depth workshops on SEO, AdWords, local search, in-house SEO, international search and Facebook marketing on June 7.
The newly updated SEOToolSet® standard and advanced training and certification course will take place in Simi Valley, Calif., from July 16 to 20.
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Bruce Clay Europe will present a two-day SEO training course in Milan, Italy, from June 21 to June 22. Don't miss this rare opportunity for world-class SEO training in Europe.
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For Arbor Day, Google announced it was going “arbor neutral” – that is, for every tree cut down for Google’s printing needs, the company will plant two.
From the board room to the basketball court, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer joins Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and Minnesota Timberwolves guard Martell Webster for a game of hoops for charity. Proceeds for the June 30 game go to the youth program A Plus.
Tech professionals in Los Angeles recently walked the runway for the Microsoft and Bloomingdale’s event Geek 2 Chic, with proceeds benefitting the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).
The financial backer of Instagram and Zynga, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, recently announced its six partners would be giving away half of their earnings to charity.
Google’s Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki pledge to donate $1 million to the charity Tipping Point on the condition that others match the contribution to the Bay Area nonprofit.
Bing redesigned search pages with a three-column layout that integrates results from a signed-in user's Facebook and Twitter networks. Improvements were also made to load speed and relevance of results.
Google Drive, a cloud collaboration and storage platform, is now available. It is open source, so third-party developers are expected to release applications for enhanced features like faxing and video editing.
Google+ has extended its Hangouts feature beyond the previous 10-user limit. Hangouts On Air allows public live video broadcasting that can also be recorded and shared after the initial broadcast.
Apple's second quarter results show a profit increase of 94 percent year-over-year. More than 35 million iPhones were sold in the second quarter of 2012 for 88 percent unit growth over the year, while iPods saw a 15 percent unit decline compared to a year ago.
A new Google search feature called Knowledge Graph displays information about things, people or places. Rather than displaying resources around the Web in response to queries, instant information about the query is returned. The feature rolled out to U.S. users with a swipe-responsive cascading format on mobile and tablet devices.
Google AdWords saw changes in the past few weeks with the launch of an AdWords for Video program and a modification to ad rotation settings. Ads expected to generate the most clicks will be displayed with priority after a period of 30 days.
Google announced that they have cleaned up Google Webmaster Tools. These changes include: updated dashboard, new left-hand navigation and compact home view. The new navigation was changed to be more representative of the content and tools within the portal.
AOL is making a big bet on online video by starting an online video division and investing in seven new original Web series.
