Tag Archives: seo

Will Google’s New Search Algorithm Penalize Content Sites?

The New York Times published an article over the weekend about the new changes to Google’s algorithm that determine search engine rankings. According to the article, 12% of websites could be effected. This sounds scary, but if your site has original, fresh content with good site architecture and high-authority inbound links – you have nothing to worry about it.

Certainly, the new changes will penalize or even eliminate many blatantly cloned or scraped sites. This is great news for site owners.Let’s hope that sites with nothing but stale content and massive Adsense are truly pushed down the SERPs.

But the real question remains: How will the Google algorithm revision effect the large well-known content farms like about.com, ehow.com or associatedcontent.com? Does the enormous amount of Google Adsense dollars generated on these sites factor in to the new math behind the algorithm?

To the credit of these content sites, they do produce original content that address search queries directly. But if Google is truly looking for high-quality content over articles produced in massive quantities by mostly non-experts, these sites come up lacking. Will high quality niche sites or blogs get a rankings boost over the content farm sites?

We should know the answers to these questions within a few weeks as the data is assimilated from the new search engine results. If Google’s algorithm has truly been improved, ehow.com, about.com and associatedcontent.com will take a hit at the expense of higher relevancy sites. If your site or blog has excellent content, white-hat SEO and good links – you may be one of the winners.

Google Analytics and Traffic Stats

Google Analytics is a great statistical package that can be downloaded and implented on a site within twenty minutes. The metrics provided by Google Analytics allow for in-depth analysis of your content and how your visitors relate to it. Developers, content writers, and SEO professionals can use the data collected to improve optimization, readability, and functionality of a site. The browser your visitor uses, the city they live in, the network they are using…it’s all there. Best of all, Google Analytics is free. The only catch?….

It’s not completely accurate.

 

Google Analytics underreports website traffic for a number of reasons.


1. Google’s opt-out policy allows the option to browse sites without reporting information to Google Analytics

2. Visitors who have disabled Javascript will not be counted

3. Many mobile phone and smartphone browsers are not javascript enabled

4. A higher percentage of internet users are using anonymous IP addresses and proxy servers to cloak their information and data

5. Problems with the implementation of Google Analytics code or compatibility issues with other code on site

 

What is the percentage of underreporting on Google Analytics? It is highly variable by site, but has been estimated at between 1% and 10%. This is too much, if you are relying on Google Analytics to pass on information about your site to potential website visitors or partners. You can find out your actual website statistics via your web server files or through your hosting company interface. It may be worth the effort and/or cost to switch to a more advanced stats package.

HTML5 and SEO: Why? When? How?

The new revision of the web’s markup language is called HTML5. The recent flareup between Apple and Adobe over the exclusion of Flash on Apple products has brought HTML5 back to the front burner for web development. Why? That’s because programmers already like the new page elements and APIs for video, audio, and geolocation that HTML offers. Now throw in that Steve Jobs has publicly backed HTML5 as the future for video integration and things get really interesting.

So what does a site owner or business owner need to know about HTML5?

1. HTML 5 SEO 

The new HTML elements include tags for article, aside, audio, canvas, command, datalist, details, embed, figcaption, figure, footer, header, hgroup, keygen, mark, meter, nav, output, progress, rp, rt, ruby, section, source, summary, time, and video. These tags are semantic and have the ability to give a greater depth of understanding to search engines exactly what the content on a site is about. If a search engine, which is very accustomed to seeing all content wrapped in <div> and <p> tags, can now differentiate between articles, sidebar content, header content, etc. – quality and relevancy of search results may increase. Search engines just might get a little smarter and algorithms may be adjusted for the new tags. Who might benefit?

Sites with good relevant content.

And who potentially loses?

Sites which have gamed the system with SEO tricks and not quality content and strong link building.

 

2. SIMPLICITY and SPEED

Marking up a site in HTML5 should also greatly reduce code. Not only will this speed up load times, but it will also enforce cleaner and more organized code. Visitors don’t care about the code, so how does this help?

Simple. Productivity.

Editing and creating new content within Dreamweaver or a content management system should be easier for small companies and larger companies will have easier implementation of their back-end software.

 

3. DEVELOPER PARADISE

HTML5 is geared towards web applications. In fact, it will be the first version of HTML to make video and graphic integration possible on sites without plugins, codecs, and extensions. Site owners may finally have a standard for which they can invest in application technology without worrying about becoming obsolete. Other developer-rich features include geolocation APIs and a 2-D drawing tool for websites called Canvas. E-commerce applications may also be improved in the new HTML markup language.

 

So what should a site owner or business owner do about HTML5?

Be prepared.

It’s not perfect and it will bound to be controversial, but HTML5 may also end up dominating web applications. When you add in the ability to code sites cleaner for search engine optimization as well, it may make sense to convert to HTML5 in the near future. Local website consultants can tell you exactly what might be required to convert your site. In some cases, the conversion could be extremely easy and in others the task can be more involved to assure backward-compatibility. Even if you don’t convert yet, stay informed about HTML5 development.

 

 

Facebook Tries Again to Answer Privacy Critics

Facebook struck out in their first attempt to silence privacy critics, but today the company has unveiled new privacy controls that should limit the amount of information that is shared by default from Facebook. This is a much better solution than Facebook’s old system that required users to opt-out in order to protect their privacy and required a great deal of public information. At first glance, it does appear that Facebook has made it simpler to protect information. Applications and websites that interface with a user’s Facebook page can be blocked from gathering information. More importantly, only a user’s name, profile picture, networks and gender are required to be accessible on the internet. Again easier, than forcing users to reset privacy settings to protect information.

Companies that advertise on Facebook are not affected by the new privacy redesign. Companies who use their Facebook fan page and Facebook advertising to promote their products and services are also unaffected. Marketers who were using sophisticated data mining techniques on Facebook will, on the other hand, be more limited in their approach. Facebook SEO also remains simple. Companies should focus on quality content, engaing fans, and building links instead of any quick-fix solutions. 

Now Serving +One Billion Customers

What is Baidu? And why should you care?

Baidu is the search engine for China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan that is beating Google at their own game. Baidu will censor content in line with the strict guidelines of China’s government, but the most important thing to consider about Baidu is that close to two billion individuals are being targeted to conduct their internet searches on Baidu and their affiliate sites and communities.

Many American sites and companies are putting politics aside and submitting their site to Baidu and optimizing their site for inclusion. This could involve creating an encoded separate Chinese-version of their site or merely submitting their English-version to Baidu.  If your product or service is something that absolutely cannot be sold to a customer in China, perhaps Baidu is not for your company. But, if there is any conceivable way that the China market of billions of consumers may someday be targeted by your company then getting into the Baidu search engine index is advisable.

Baidu trades on the NASDAQ under the stock symbol BIDU.

What is the Best Blogging Platform for Your Business?

Relevant keyword-rich blogging can be an excellent SEO tool for small companies to use to improve organic search rankings. An important question to answer though is: Which blogging platform or software is best for your business? Each platform is unique and has potential advantages or disadvantages for your business. Here is a look at a few:

WordPress

Very widely used and the best choice for most companies looking for a self-hosted blog. Plug-ins, widgets, and SEO tools are all easily available, in addition to thousands of developer themes. Self-hosting options keep developer options wide open including sophisticated e-commerce solutions. Easy to create a blog that actually looks like a normal website or embed a blog within a company website.

Google Blogger

Extremely simple, but somewhat limited upside for a growing site. Integrates easily with other Google accounts and very easy to establish custom domains. Somewhat tempting from a SEO-perspective because it seems logical that a Google-hosted blog is more easily indexed by Google, but Blogger has limitations for developers that are hard to overlook.

TypePad

Offers free hosted accounts or paid-hosted accounts. Easy to learn with more tools, widgets, and development opportunities than Blogger. Search industry data seems to indicate that WordPress blogs rank better than TypePad blogs in general. TypePad is larger and more established than other blog hosting platforms like Posterous, Tumblr, and Squarespace.

Movable Type

Open source blogging platform from the same company that offers TypePad. Good solution for a company with skilled developers who want more control over their blog than the options offered by Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress and have the time and resources to develop their blog.

Drupal

The blogging platform that makes sense for open source and coding gurus. Tight-knit community of developers who trade tips and code to solve problems. Very few limitations for companies with skilled developers. This platform is more code-intensive and less artistic than other options. Excellent choice for companies looking to manage multiple websites from one platform. Not the best option for sites with intense multimedia integration.

Joomla

Another open source content management system with a more friendly bias towards themes, navigation, plug-ins, and asthetics than Drupal. Requires more CMS or development skills than WordPress, but also has more community support than Drupal.  E-commerce and useful commercial extensions can be easily configured. Excellent theme otpions.

Posterous

Micro-blogging service that offers cross-posting by e-mail. An excellent alternative or a nice addition to Twitter and Facebook social media campaigns. Very limited from an artistic perspective, but offers a clean and simple look-and-feel. A significant time saver for companies wanting to deliver daily marketing messages. SEO considerations of duplicate content should be considered before cross-posting across too many platforms.

Tumblr

Another micro-blogging service with less plug-ins options and developer themes than Posterous. Hosted Tumblr blogs can easily handle large traffic spikes, which make them a good option for companies trying to create a viral buzz with their blog. Cheap and easy.

Squarespace

Offers an core platform to convert a website to a blog or start from scratch. Not as many plug-ins an developer options as WordPress, but a cleaner more modern platform than Blogger and TypePad. A good option for a company looking for a hosted cloud-based website instead of self-hosting. A straight-forward and easy-to-lean blogging service.