Spam Filter

Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts posted a longer video today answering what it is like to fight webspam at Google.

The questions posed by Brian Harnish of Westminster, California were:

What is a day in the life of a search spam team member like? What is the evolution of decisions in terms of how they decide which aspects of the search algorithm to update? Will certain things within the algorithm never be considered for removal?

In short, Google has both humans who fight spam manually and also engineers who write algorithms to fight spam. The human manual spam fighters handle reactive spam, for the most part, whereas the engineers focus on proactive spam fighting.

Matt explains the best spam fighters look for patterns and trends and try to figure out “what is the loophole they’re exploiting.” Then the engineer would work up an algorithm to expose and cover the loophole.

Most engineers spend their days coding and building algorithms. They often will build something, test it and refine. Then the algorithm might be tested in a live experiment where false positives and other issues might be discovered.

As Matt describes how engineers work, he makes it sound like an art. Where an engineer is not just looking to squash the loophole but creatively look for ways to catch the spam at a deeper level.

Often, the tasks set for the beginning of the day or the beginning of the quarter will change fast. What Google’s engineers set out to do may change based on a major issue or a big complaint from someone or somewhere, that complaint can come internally within Google or externally via a spam report, blogger or somewhere else. So it is a very “dynamic” space,” Cutts said but that also makes it interesting and “very fun and an intellectual problem.”

People will try to spam forever, as Matt has said before – so there is plenty of work and of course, job security. But engineers can work on anything, from existing algorithms to new ones, to making old algorithms faster or better, to building new algorithms for new issues.

“You never want to play whack a mole with a spammer,” Matt said but instead find way to plug a hole.

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Restaurant Menus - Google

Google has started showing complete restaurant menus in its search results when a query specifically looks for menu information.

We think Allie Brown was the first to spot this when she shared the results of a search for “jones brunch menu” on Twitter. For that query, Google begins the search results with a card-style answer that details the restaurant’s menu across several categories — appetizers, entrées, sandwiches and more.

(For the record, Google actually seems to be getting the details wrong. In looking at the Jones website, this looks like their “all day” menu, not the brunch menu that Allie searched for.)

We’ve reached out to Google to find out if this is a limited test or something that’s rolling out to all searchers — no reply yet.

Postscript: Shortly after publishing, a Google spokesperson replied to our questions with the standard “we’re always experimenting, nothing to announce at this time” response.

As Aaron Bradley points out, the menu data could be coming from AllMenus.com, the site that’s included in the local search box for Jones.

One thing’s pretty certain: It’s probably not coming from the Jones website, where the menu is part of a Flash animation and doesn’t include the pricing information that Google’s menu card shows.

There’s an argument to be made that this is another example of Google hurting business owners by showing answers that eliminate the need to visit a website. Maybe, but there’s also research from about 18 months ago that says less than half of independent restaurants have a website, and of the ones that do only 40 percent show their menu online. In many cases, those online menus are old or incomplete, buried in a Flash movie or PDF, or otherwise hard to get to. So with other research showing that 80 percent of consumers want to see a menu before they pick a restaurant, no wonder Google is going out of its way to put menus right in the search results. Google has always been a lot more concerned with making searchers happy than making website owners happy.

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Google Updates

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, announced that Google has released a refresh of its Page Layout Algorithm. The filter, also known as the Top Heavy algorithm, downgrades the ranking of a web page with too many ads at the top or if the ads are deemed too distracting for users.

Cutts said the algorithm was refreshed last Thursday, February 6. Here’s his tweet:

This would be the third confirmed update to the Top Heavy algorithm, with the full release schedule as follows:

• Top Heavy 1: Jan. 19, 2012 (impacted less than 1% of English searches)
• Top Heavy 2: Oct. 9, 2012 (impacted 0.7% of English searches)
• Top Heavy 3: Feb. 6, 2014 (impact not stated)

Background On & Recovering From Top Heavy

What is the page layout algorithm? As we quoted from Google originally:

We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.

So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.

Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

See also our original article for when Top Heavy was first released, for advice about how a site that’s caught may have to wait until the next release for any changes it’s made to restore rankings.

We have not seen many complaints within the SEO community around February 6th or 7th about any update like this, which suggests it impacted fewer sites than when Google updates other filters like the Panda or Penguin algorithms.

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Paid-Link Penalty

Yesterday online travel giant Expedia announced Q4 2013 and full year results. The company “beat the street,” reporting strong room night and revenue growth across all geographies.

So far a suspected penalty from Google hasn’t hurt the company’s bottom line. See our earlier stories:

• Expedia Lost 25% Of Their Search Visibility In Google Possibly Over Unnatural Links
• Expedia & Google: No Comment From Both About Possible Expedia Penalty

Last month the site took what appears to be a major traffic hit, losing as much as 25 percent of its organic search traffic. Many believe this was because Google penalized the site afterdiscovery of a paid link scheme.

Google and Expedia have repeatedly and pointedly not commented on the issue. However there’s substantial evidence that Expedia was participating in a paid-link scheme.

During the Expedia earnings call yesterday CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was asked about the suspected penalty by a JP Morgan Chase analyst:

Douglas Anmuth – JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division I just wanted to ask 2 things. There have been some recent reports [indiscernible] some national search visibility on Google. I was just hoping that you could comment on that . . .

Dara Khosrowshahi – Chief Executive Officer, President, Director and Member of Executive Committee Yes, as far as Google goes, look, listen, we’re not going to comment on speculative articles about our Google trends. What I’ll tell you in general is that our traffic from Google, both on a paid and an organic basis, continues to increase on a year-on-year basis. We look at all of our practices in Google, our SEM practices. We make sure that the content on from our side is great, our SEO practices, et cetera, and we’re constantly auditing them and making sure that our practices are industry-leading. So really, that’s the only comment I’ll make. Google’s a big partner. We continue to grow with them. And from a long-term basis, we look to continue to grow with them going forward.

That’s a very bland non-answer. One might call it “evasive” even.

Expedia gets a significant portion of its bookings through search traffic. Indeed, Expedia is highly sensitive to its dependence on Google. Not just a “big partner,” Expedia sees Mountain View as a potentially formidable competitor in travel. The company is part of the anti-Google lobbying group FairSearch.org that has complained loudly about Google “favoring its own content” vs. third parties in organic results.

The following is a discussion citing Expedia’s Martin MacDonald from a Linkdex report called “Travel 360″:

Certainly from an Expedia affiliate perspective, we know that for above 50% of all of the bookings that we receive, the consumer’s journey starts at Google. When you consider that is likely also to be true for other segments of the market such as meta search, or direct bookings, we can reasonably state that Google already have something of a monopoly in Europe.

The impact of any penalty resulting in a 25 percent loss (or more) of organic traffic should manifest at some point in Expedia booking and revenue losses. So far that hasn’t happened.

Expedia is a company with many brands and diversified sources of traffic. It may be able to “compensate” for the suspected penalty by buying more SEM or through its subsidiary sites and affiliates. 

Source: http://searchengineland.com/suspected-paid-link-penalty-hasnt-hit-expedia-bottom-line-yet-183714

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Google NoFollows Google+

Folks on Google+ noticed that Google+ has recently began nofollow many of the links in your profile by default.

So if you visit my profile page on Google+, the section where it says "Links", most of those, if not all, seem to be nofollowed.

Currently, the links you add in the "Story" section of your profile, do not seem to be nofollowed. I am sure that will happen eventually.

I doubt these links mattered much to Google anyway but now they don't matter at all, because nofollowed links are not links in the eyes of Google.

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6 Local Tips For Small Business SEO Success

We all know that a key component of any small business’ marketing strategy is to effectively position its brand in search engine results. But is it possible to dominate search results with content you control — or at least content you’ve influenced?

The answer is yes. There are simple and effective ways to boost visibility for your business in search results, while simultaneously improving related marketing efforts in social media, ratings and reviews, and media outreach.

Take a look at my six tips for local SEO success, along with action items for each in order to successfully implement them. Throughout, I’ll reference some great work done by Billy’s Bakery, a New York bakery chain, which has utilized many of these tips to dominate their search results with positive content and coverage.

1. Properly Optimize Information On Your Business’ Website

Your website is your most important and valuable online asset, so ensuring that it is properly optimized to appear high within search results is key.

Action items:

•  Create a domain name that reflects your business type and its location. For example, Billy’s Bakery uses the domain “billysbakerynyc.com,” which includes it all.

•  Add keywords on page titles that identify with your business, its services and its location.

•  Incorporate your business’ name, address and phone number (NAP) information in not only the homepage or contact page, but each individual page of your website.

•  In addition to highlighting your offerings, ensure your website copy includes as much about your local area as possible to further associate your business with the nearby vicinity. For example, note what section of town you’re in, what sports team plays across the street, or what park is around the corner. Not only will this added info help improve your website copy for customers, it will also boost your search visibility as a local business.

2. Secure, Build Out And Update Your Business Listings On Local Websites

Perhaps one of the most effective ways to boost local SEO is to ensure the availability and consistency of your business’ listing information across a myriad of third-party sources. Google and other search engines constantly scan these sites to develop a stronger understanding of the local web and your business.

When your business isn’t listed — or the information listed about it is incomplete or inaccurate — there is a risk of diminishing or negatively impacting your business’ placements in search results.

Action items:

•  Search leading local listings websites ranging from Dexknows, Facebook, and Googleto Yelp, YP and Yellowbook to ensure that your business is listed, that you have “claimed” your listing, and that the business name, phone and address posted are consistent and accurate. Make changes as necessary and delete duplicate pages. As in the Billy’s Bakery example above, local sites like Google+, Yelp and TripAdvisor hold a lot of weight in search results, so it’s important to get it right.

•  Build out your listings with photos, videos, website URL and other key information to make your listings more informative and attractive to potential customers.

•  Ensure that your business is listed in the appropriate categories so it can be properly optimized. Relevant keywords in the business name help too. As I noted earlier, “Billy’s Bakery NYC” includes both the business type and location. However, don’t overdo it with unnecessary keywords in the business name (e.g., “Billy’s Bakery Cookies Cakes Hot Chocolate”), or search engines will take note and it will negatively impact your results.

•  To further your efforts, work with a top listings provider such as Neustar Localeze or Acxiom to automate the process of securing and updating your listings across the broad ecosystem of local sites.

•  If your business has multiple locations, create separate listings for each location on your website to boost the visibility of both your brand and each of your stores. The search results for Billy’s Bakery highlight the business’ three different locations individually.

3. Ensure An Appropriate Link Strategy

Links from your website to other related websites, and vice versa, play a role in your business’ SEO visibility, because they help to establish the authenticity and credibility of your business. But trying to game system by leveraging unrelated links will damage visibility over time.

Action items:

•  Consistently share links to your website via your Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels, and encourage others to pass along the information as well.

•  Include links to your website in email newsletters and other updates to customers.

•  Host or sponsor local events, or provide discounts for neighborhood students, and then encourage neighborhood businesses, the local chamber of commerce, charity organizations and other partners to link to your website when talking about those activities.

•  Create a local directory of community resources including your favorite nearby restaurants, stores and cultural attractions, to provide an opportunity for you to link out to others (and for them to return the favor). Even consider starting a blog where you can talk about your business’ neighborhood and link to businesses and places of interest.

•  However, be sure that your link strategy is authentic in that you know who you are linking to and that they have relevance to your business. Also, do not create link schemes like spamming your business’ domain name on websites, forums or blog comments. Be wary of third-party content providers who claim that they can improve your SEO by writing content for your blog with SEO boosting links.  These activities have the potential to damage your credibility with search engines and negatively impact your visibility in search results, as Google recently warned.

4. Encourage And Respond To Online User Reviews

User reviews help to build your business’ visibility in local search results, and so does your engagement in responding to them — whether they are positive or negative. However, small businesses need to ensure the reviews themselves always come from the outside.

Action items:

•  Encourage your customers to leave ratings and reviews of your business if they are satisfied with your work. Whether it’s a simple email after a service is rendered, a flyer at checkout, or a callout on your website – the more positive, authentic reviews your business receives, the better your business will appear in search (both via the search engines and the local review sites themselves).

•  As part of your encouragement, provide customers with a variety of sites to post reviews so the spread is diverse across multiple key local sites.

•  Be proactive about responding to all types of user reviews. If the post is positive, thank the customer for their feedback and encourage them to use your services again. If the post is negative, explain that you appreciate the feedback and ask the customer to get in contact with you about their concerns so you can address their problems.

•  Whatever you do, never post false reviews! When discovered – and they usually are, because they’re transparent –  you will either lose your visibility in search, or your visibility will not be the kind you want.

5. Engage Regularly Via Social Media

Social media pages play a notable role in local business’ visibility in search results. The more proactive your social media strategy, the higher likelihood your pages will attract followers — and in turn, appear within search.

Action items:

•  Develop a strong social media strategy that engages customers via Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and other popular networks on a regular basis. The more followers and engagement you receive, the higher your pages will appear in search. Note Billy’s Bakery’s Facebook page in the business’ search results above.

•  Some ideas for engagement include updates on new products, promotions and giveaways, and highlighting stories of relevance to your customers. Be sure to respond to those reaching out via social media with questions or feedback on their orders.

6. Drive Media Coverage

Media coverage of your local business — especially from highly credible news websites — can result in a long-term positive impact on your business’ search results. For example, MarthaStewart.com’s coverage of Billy’s Bakery above appears high in its search results. Coverage like this can drive even more business to your brand, especially because it’s coming from a reliable, third-party source.

Action items:

•  Develop relationships with local media and bloggers by encouraging them to take advantage of your products or services. If you’re a restaurant, send over your popular pizza to your city’s local foodie blogger. Or email a reporter about a charity event that you’re sponsoring that will benefit the local community. Your PR efforts can result in positive articles, videos or other types of coverage that will remain highly visible in search over the long-term and boost your brand’s reputation.

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6 Google Search Changes

Google is constantly testing new features and making updates to its search product. Sometimes, the changes spotted are in beta, while others are confirmed new features. We've rounded up some recent changes that have been spotted across the Web that you just may have missed. 

1. Date Selector in Hotel Carousel Results

The query [hotels in New York] brought up results for some people that included date selectors for the hotels featured in the local carousel results.

In a statement to Search Engine Land, Google said:

We’re always adding features to search to help people find what they need and get things done faster — you can now more easily research hotels when planning a trip and filter by user ratings and hotel class, as well as select specific dates.

2. Cards for Local Results

Looks like Google is testing “answer” cards in the local search results that bring up details like the address of the merchant. Mike Blumenthal at Blumenthals.com showed an example of this for a brand name + location search (“Dress Barn locations Amherst”):

However, if there was multiple results for a query, the results came in pack form:

Blumenthal also pointed out when the cards showed some odd inconsistencies.

3. Answers to Complex Questions 

Speaking of answer cards, the folks over at the Google Operating System blog had some funtrying to stump Google’s answer feature from the Knowledge Graph. 

From the blog:

Google used to only answer simple questions like "who's the prime minister of Canada?" or "what's the population of China?". Thanks to the Knowledge Graph project, Google can answer more complicated questions like "who played Batman?", "what's the latest album of Celine Dion?", "what are the main attractions in Spain?".

To test this feature out, the first query was one the author knew there wasn’t a definitive answer to: “distance to the Mars”.

Here’s another good one: “why is the sky blue?”

4. Enhanced Stock Cards 

The Google Operating System blog also noticed Google testing new enlarged stock report cardsin the results, and “tabs are placed above the chart and you can get the stock price at any time by mousing over the chart or tapping it,” the blog reported.

Also of note: links to Google Finance and competitor sites Yahoo Finance and MSN Money are removed in the above card, though we were unable to recreate this.

5. Distance Results 

Google announced on Google+ that mobile users now have the ability to get results for the distance between any two locations – no matter how far they are from one another. The example Google gave was the “distance between Siberia and Hawaii.”

6. Streamlined Search Options

The Google Operating System blog reported search options were showing differently:

Google removed a few specialized search options that were usually displayed in the "more" drop-down: recipes, patents, discussions, blogs, places. The list of links to services like Maps, Images, News, Flights, Shopping is reordered based on your query. This isn't a new idea, it was implemented a long time ago by Google, but now it's used more often.

TechCrunch reported that Google confirmed the update, saying that if, for example, "you search for 'English to Tagalog' you’ll see ‘Apps’ that’ll help you with translation as well as ‘Books’ and ‘Shopping’ in case you’re looking to buy a printed or electronic dictionary."

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/

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How To Analyze A Link

The importance of link quality in SEO cannot be overstated1. Before you begin any link building project within2 SEO, you must be sure you’re pursuing3 links that will not only have an impact today, but will continue to have a positive impact in the future.

4That means understanding what makes a quality link, and why. Let’s take a look at the elements of link analysis, which are:

1. Relevance
2. Link Type
3. Authority
4. Location
5. Smell Test

Relevance

Relevance should always be the north star of your link building compass. Without relevance, a link will, at best, be sub-par quality and, at worst, negatively impact your SEO efforts, potentially resulting in a manual penalty from Google, or the algorithmic penalty (filter) Penguin.

Of course, relevance isn’t the only factor worth considering, but it’s certainly the first you should examine. And, as with all elements of a link, relevance needs to be analyzed at both the page and domain level.

The page level should always be strictly relevant — if the link doesn’t make contextual sense on the page, the link will be useless or worse.

Domain to domain relevance should be a goal, as well, although there will be times that the link only makes relevant sense at the page level. A good example of a quality link lacking domain relevance would be a link from the New York Times to, say, a Mom blog. Obviously, the Mom blog would and should be thrilled to have the link, despite the lack of domain relevance.

Link Type

Link type is the second consideration when analyzing a link. This means both the way the link is formed and the manner in which it’s linking, both of which make a difference in link quality.

First, let’s examine the different ways a link can be formed:

• Anchor Text Link. Anchor text is the visible, clickable text of the link. Anchor text links are the most common and best way to increase search ranking for a targeted keyword; although, Penguin will punish over-optimization. The words used as anchor text can include branded, keyword-rich, partial branded, long tail, etc. Variety is extremely important in organic link building.

• Naked URL. A naked URL is when the full path URL used as the anchor text (http://www.example.com/). These are a very natural way to link, although not as powerful as an anchor text link.

• Citation Link. Citation links are the condensed version of a naked URL, e.g., pageonepower.com instead of http://pageonepower.com/. Citation links tend to be more powerful if your web address is the same as your brand name (i.e., Page One Power and pageonepower.com).

• Image Link. An image link is when an image is used as the link — in other words, clicking the image takes you to a new page. These are good for link diversity, as long as the alt attribute tag is properly utilized (this tag acts as the link’s anchor text, although it’sslightly less powerful).

• Short Link. A short link is a condensed or shortcut URL that will redirect you to a full URL (e.g., http://selnd.com/NqXlw). These links need to be examined to see how they’re redirecting to determine whether they’re passing link equity.

Each of the above methods of linking has its pluses and minuses, and each has an impact on the quality of the link. Now, let’s look at the different manners of linking:

• Direct. A normal, regular link which takes you straight to the intended page. There’s nothing to impede link equity or link quality.

• Redirect. A redirect is a link that takes you to one page, which then passes you on to another page. This can mean link equity is lost if Google’s crawlers can’t follow the redirect, which will make the link virtually worthless for SEO purposes (outside of referral traffic). Redirected links need to be checked to see whether they are permanent (301) redirects or temporary (302) redirects — 301s pass link equity, but 302s pass little to no link equity.

• Site-wide. A site-wide backlink (video autoplay) is located on every page of the entire linking site. Typically this happens when the link occurs in the footer/sidebar of the site. This can be natural, and Google often counts these as a single link. In some cases, Google may even red flag site-wide links (especially if it’s a pattern), which can bring the wrath of Penguin.

• JavaScript. Often times, JavaScript is used to create drop-down, fly-out or mega menus on a site. Though these are often SEO-friendly, it all depends on how they are coded.

• Nofollow. Nofollow is an html tag which tells Google crawlers to ignore the link. This means the site owner specifically chose not to pass link equity. Google advises using the nofollow tag for paid links or links to websites you don’t specifically trust. There are different arguments about whether or not these have any value, as Google is vague about how they treat them. A few nofollow links are very natural within a site’s backlink profile.

The goal here is to build naturalistic links. You want a variety of naked URL, citation, image and anchor text links. Variety within the anchor text links themselves is essential as well — you should be using a mix of branded terms, partial branded terms, long tail keywords, exact match keywords and synonyms, etc.

As far as the method of linking, you should always strive for direct. Keep an eye on site-wide, redirects and javascript, and be aware of their potential to diminish or hurt your SEO efforts.

Authority

Authority is the next metric you’ll need to measure in order to determine link quality. This was overvalued in the past, often being placed above relevance.

In today’s link building world, authority is still an important link metric. However, if the link isn’t relevant, or the link is created in an artificial/poor manner, then authority won’t be enough to move the needle.

Authority can be measured in a variety of ways, depending on personal preference. There’s the PageRank toolbar, which I don’t recommend as Google only updates it periodically (and it isn’t a great metric to begin with).

Then there’s the toolbar from Moz, which includes the metrics Domain Authority, Page Authority and MozRank. I’ve found this to be the most convenient tool to use as it’s lightweight, accurate and free.

There’s also Alexa Toolbar, of course.

Regardless of how you decide to determine authority, bear in mind that it’s more of a quality check than a determining factor — you want to meet minimum thresholds, not chase the purple dragon of high authority. For link quality, we’ve had much better results acquiring natural links from highly relevant niche sites than chasing after a link from the New York Times.

Make sure to check the authority of the page and the domain, as both will impact link quality.

And, don’t wholly rely on toolbars to tell you a site’s quality, either. Check traffic levels withSEMrush, check out social media engagement and blog comments (if there’s a blog), etc. Check for signs of actual life on the site, and the quality of engagement.

Location

The location of the link on the page is the next factor in link analysis. Where the link is located plays a role in how much link equity is passed. Here’s a sliding scale of link placement, from best to worst:

1. In content
2. Boxed out of content (e.g. author bio box)
3. Sidebar
4. Footer

Although old, Rand Fishkin’s article, All Links Are Not Created Equal, still does an outstanding job explaining basic link principles; and, I highly encourage you to take the time to read it.

Now obviously, you can’t always control link placement — in fact, it’s far better to have a link make contextual sense than to be shoehorned in to increase link equity. But for understanding and analyzing links, keep in mind that the location of the link does affect the link’s overall quality.

Smell Test

SEO is in some ways an art as much as it is a science. When analyzing a link, it’s important to look beyond link metrics. The site as a whole needs at least a quick quality analysis.

One thing I’ve learned from doing thousands of quick site analyses is this: don’t be afraid to listen to your instincts.

In link building, I refer to this as the “smell test” — our noses know when a site stinks, sometimes even before we can logically determine it.

Don’t be afraid to listen to your gut, your nose or whatever anatomical part you’d like to metaphorically engage.

More specifically, here’s what I typically look at when performing a quick and dirty smell test:

• Other outbound links on the page and even domain
• Content quality, both page and domain
• Website or brand information
• Contact information
• Date/frequency of blog posts (if there is a blog)

Basically, scan through the site with a critical eye. Do they have a blog? Is it up to date? How’s the content quality? Do they have an in-depth About page? Are they linking out to irrelevant sites? Do they have an address in the contact page? What about a phone number? Who runs the site? What’s their background?

All of these questions will separate the wheat from the chaff — a real website from a thinly veiled spam site.

Once again, this is to make sure your link isn’t in a bad “link neighborhood.” Check the site for quality practices outside of link metrics. Spend enough time scouring the web and you’ll develop a keen sense of site quality, quickly.

Putting it all Together

The point of breaking down and analyzing a link is to better understand a strong link versus a weak link and what separates the two.

If you’re worried about a link, simply check:

• Page and Domain Relevance
• Link type
• Site Authority
• Link Placement
• Website Smell Test

By the end, you’ll have a better understanding of the value of the link, not to mention an idea of the quality of the linking website.

The goal should be good links on sites that make sense, which will continue to have a positive ongoing impact on your SEO efforts.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Source:  Searchengineland.com

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Google Search Redesigns

Yesterday, Google launched a new design of the stock quotes “card” at the top of its search results. The new card dropped links to competing financial websites, something Google previously had in place since 2000. But after attention was drawn to the fact, Google quietly restored the links.

Google Operating System noted the change and the drop of competitor links yesterday, as didTechCrunch. And that’s what we saw when we first posted this story at 9:22am ET today:

Compare the new card above to the old one below, and you can see how the links to competitors were removed:

Google has provided stock quotes at the top of its results for searches on stock symbols since 2000, and those quotes have included links to competitors since that time.

A few hours after our story on this originally went up, however, Google updated the new look to restore competitor links. Actually, what seems to have happened is that it went back to the old design as shown at the top of this article.

Was the new design a brief test? A reconsideration after attention was drawn to removal of competitor links? We don’t know, but we’ve asked Google for more.

Postscript: A Google spokesperson sent us a statement, “We’re always experimenting with new formats and features for answers in Search, but we don’t have anything specific to announce here.”

Source : http://searchengineland.com/

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Keyword Research After The Keyword Tool

One of the primary ways SEO changed forever in 2013 was Google’s move to 100% secure search  — otherwise known as “Keyword Not Provided.”  SEOs long accustomed to measuring their performance at the keyword level have been forced to rethink their measurement criteria in order to prove the value of their efforts.   

After Google’s announcement in late September 2013, SEOs may have seen charts such as the one below that show a sharp decrease in organic traffic from keywords ranked on Page 1. Yet organic visits to the site may not have actually declined; it’s just that the keyword traffic data is no longer available.

Without visibility into keyword traffic data, this long-standing metric of SEO success is now outdated. The “new SEO” must now look for new ways of measuring success. Rank is one measure of success, but rank isn’t useful without real traffic data to put into context. Analytics is the “Source of Truth,” and Secure Search requires a new way of looking at analytics.

Source: BrightEdge

A New Framework For SEO In 2014

Below, I have highlighted a framework for building a successful SEO methodology in the world of Google’s Secure Search. This contains three steps and two key enablers.

1. Start With Pages

Keywords drive traffic, but pages convert. The page is the next level of granularity up from the keyword that can be easily measured. A user performs a search, clicks on a link on the SERP and arrives at a page. The page is where content resides, whether that content is meant to inform or entertain, capture leads or sell a product. The page — not the keyword — is the primary element with which the searcher interacts with your company. Unless the keyword is a brand name, the keyword is only the means by which the user arrives at your website and begins an interaction with your company.

In light of Google’s other changes in 2013, such as the shift to semantic search, the page is a better measure of performance than the keyword. The keyword can be generic, and the page is specific to your business. More importantly, the page is the place where the interaction with your content happens — and the place where you convert searchers into customers.

To transition to a page-centric SEO measurement approach, first establish baseline performance at the page level by ensuring that you have visibility into traffic, conversions and revenue for each page. Actual (not estimated) data is necessary here in order to understand how exactly your pages are performing and to take the next step in mapping your content (pages) to demand.

2. Pair Pages To Keywords

Keywords are still the primary engine of the SEO process, since it’s how users find your pages. And the ranking of your pages on those keywords is an important metric for correlating performance of the page.

Rank still matters (and it always will). Adopting page-based SEO does not mean the end of rank data. Rank data is essential for measuring the success of SEO activities. In 2014, tracking rank has become a multidimensional task, as rankings (and user intent) often differ by device type (mobile, tablet or desktop), location (city and country), and placement in Universal results.

When correlating rank data to conversions, it’s important to note which high-ranking pages are under-performing in conversions, or which low-ranking pages have high conversions. This type of analysis gives you insight into strategies for future success, particularly as you shift from a mindset of “How do I rank for this query?” to an audience-centric mindset of “How do I best answer the questions my users have?” in a post-Hummingbird environment.

Keyword discovery is still a necessary component for creating pages that answer user questions. Using keyword discovery tools gives you visibility into user intent and can inform the creation of pages that answer real questions users have, in the language they use to search.

3. Plan, Execute & Track

Page is the new center of the SEO Universe. Page-centric planning, execution, and measurement means that page conversions (not keyword conversions) will be the metric of success. The planning of goals and the implementation of tasks will work toward that end.

Just in the way that you likely already group keywords, it’s now necessary to group pages by similar criteria appropriate to your business, whether that’s product type, audience type or line of business. Once pages are grouped, it’s easier to plan activities based on business priorities and measure the success of those activities through rank improvement and, more importantly, conversions.

Enabler 1: Wire In Powerful Data Sources

All data is relevant and connected. Integrated and accurate data from sources such as Google Webmaster Tools and tools like Majestic SEO are essential in a Secure Search environment.

Google Webmaster Tools’ keyword click and impression data provides partial visibility into your success in the face of “Keyword (Not Provided).” Backlink data gives you a picture of what the search engines see about not only your site but also your competitors’ sites.

Enabler 2: Utilize Technology To Manage Data At Scale

The right technology platform allows you to integrate data from site analytics, backlink trackers, social platforms and Google Webmaster Tools. When you can see your rank, keyword, social and content data in comprehensive dashboard reports, you’ll get laser-sharp visibility into the success of your pages and will be able to make decisions on how to prioritize future activities with ease. The right technology partners have deep relationships with the search engines and make frequent product enhancements, helping you stay abreast of the evolving search landscape.

As Dave Lloyd of Adobe says, “You’ve got to deploy the tools that will help keep your team ahead of SEO changes and rapidly respon­sive to mar­ket changes.” Without these tools, your best page optimization efforts could find you outranked and with declining conversion rates.

Conclusion

With secure search here to stay, page-centric SEO is the next evolutionary step in a 15-plus-year-old industry that had been overly focused on the keyword. Adopting a page-centric SEO methodology that pairs keywords to pages in 2014 is a “must do” strategy. Make sure that you focus on planning, execution and tracking to optimize page conversion. Doing so ensures that SEOs will continue to “earn” their rightful place in digital marketing mix going forward.

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