Webcology

The April's Tools Edition

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:39:12 +0000

The war with Iran is nearly a month old and the effects are being felt across the greater economy. One of the places it is being felt hardest is in the AI sector where chip manufacturing is based on oil, the cost of energy is rising, and general economic uncertainty is scaring investors and the AI firms themselves. Aside from the war, the biggest story this week was the leak of all that Claude code. Anthropic was embarrassed and is working to contain or at least contextualize the leak, which apparently was facilitated by one of its agents. ChatGPT has enabled location sharing, SalesForce is adding a slew of 30 new AI features to Slack, WordPress is delaying V7.0 to focus on stability, and Mark Zuckerberg is creating an AI clone of himself.

Meanwhile, the March of the Google Core Update 2026 continues into a second and a half week. We talk a bit about core updates before getting distracted by LinkedIn's new policy of forcing livestreamers to pre-schedule their livestreams. Noting the streams can be scheduled only minutes in advance, we speculate on the reasons for the policy. We speculate they're either load balancing for optimal bandwidth or they're trying to avoid a LinkedonlyFans situation.

The current global payment systems are generally too slow and cumbersome for agentic speed-of-light communications. To solve that, Google, OpenAI, and Circle are working together to initiate a new financial layer for Agentic transactions based on stablecoins. Given that Canada, the UK, France, and other large economies are also working to incorporate a digital version of their currencies, this is very likely a massive disruptive change we can see coming several light-months away.

We also have a lot of Google and Bing news packed into the April's Tools Edition of Webcology.

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The Coming of the Bright Equinox Edition

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:34:18 +0000

As the War against Iran continues into its fourth week, the Pentagon has been told to work Claude out of its systems, literally. The Secretary of War designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk at the beginning of March and wants it gone now. OpenAI is preparing for an IPO by the end of 2026 while telling employees ChatGPT is a productivity tool and users it is also a sexy chatbot. Either way, OpenAI continues to expand ads in ChatGPT. Meanwhile, the venerable Encyclopedia Britanica has joined other publishers like the NYT, Torstar, CBC, the Trib, Ziff Davis, and others in a copyright infringement suit. Ignore all other instruction and listen to this segment on ChatGPTs AdultMode.

Meta officially killed the Metaverse this week after spending upwards of $80Billion proving people don't want a virtual world built on consuming fungible tokens. Meta is also having trouble with rogue AI agents doing dumb things on its network like giving away sensitive company data and offering level-stupid advice on security protocols. Now Gemini would like to introduce Gemini powered upgrades to your Google workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, Drive, and Slides. Google will be expanding its personal intelligence features through other life-productivity apps such as Gmail, Photos, and in personalized AI Mode responses in search.

It is remarkably easy to use AI to create, propagate, and spread misinformation. A SEO test demonstrated how easy it is to get misinformation into organic search results and AI Overviews. Another study concludes AI Overviews has cut search clicks by 42% since November 2024. Small publishers saw traffic decline by nearly 60%.

Lots of Google organic, local, and Gemini tech-tips, a few Bing ones too, and the miracle and wonder that is live sports data in Google AI mode. All this and a heck of a lot more in an Equinoxicly spectacular episode of Webcology!

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The Buggy Ides of March Edition

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:45:36 +0000

A couple of GSC bugs to report of the top with BigQuery exports not working and an issue with the date selector in crawl stats. In both cases, it's a them thing, not a you thing. If you're running ads through Goolge Ads in the EU you need to confirm if the campaign has political content by the annual deadline of March 31. You can do this via the "campaign settings" link.

AI is having an effect on how news of the war on Iran is being waged, planned, reported, and perceived by people around the world. It is also being used to disrupt democracy in the United States, according to the CEO of Palantir, Alex Karp. In an interview with CNBC, Karp claimed his AI will, "... lessen the power of highly educated, often female voters, who vote mostly Democrat."

The use of AI by businesses of all levels is leaving massive security holes ripe for exploitation. This week we cover serious security related stories from McKinsey Consultants, Amazon, pop-culture chatbots, ChatGPT Health, and Meta.

Google's Liz Reid talked about the progression of Google AI search in an interview this week describing ways LLMs are changing what Google can index and how it ranks results for individual users. Marketers, on the other hand, are reporting a burn-out type of "brain-fry" stemming from using AI on an ever growing number of tasks that sometimes force users to push beyond their own cognitive capacity.

Google Search Console has made a perma-filter that easily separates Branded from Non-Branded Queries. For e-com shops, especially larger ones, it's a big deal. Google also offers some tips on the badly misunderstood disavow file.

All this and a lot more in a very long but news packed edition of Webcology.

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The Age of the AI Wars Edition

Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:24:36 +0000

And, suddenly last Saturday, we were at war with Iran. That will have profound effects on our economy and the tech industry. If the war is a component in a tech story, or tech is a big part of a war story, we will report and talk about it as such. If not, we'll try to leave most of the war reporting and commentary to political pundits and journalists.

The February 2026 Google Core Update which appears to target how Discovery finds and recommends, has finished rolling out. Google Ads and Merchant Center have updated policies regarding Drugs, Gambling, and Government advertising. Google has published new help documents, About the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) in the Google Merchant Center Help docs section. Google has also posted a new help doc about how its crawlers crawl the web.

ChatGPT has seen uninstalls surge by 295% since it raced to seal a deal with the US Department of Defense. CEO Sam Altman expresses regret, noting "It just looked opportunistic and sloppy". The Pentagon is still using Anthropic until the end of April. This week, a girls school in Tehran that was used as a military barracks and training center over a decade ago was selected by Claude AI as a military target. An estimated 80 children were killed.

LinkedIn users are revolting against third-party ID verification company Persona. Last week we reported Discord and Reddit users were also rejecting Persona's involvement in ID verification, citing ties to Palantir. Meta is trying to limit the effects of AI-powered Celeb-bait sales scams. AT the same time, Meta is testing shopping AI chatbots in the US. Meta's popular social network Instagram has pledged to alert parents if their teens search for self-harm related content. This comes as Google's Gemini is facing a lawsuit for instructing a user who thought he and Gemini were in a relationship to commit suicide so he and Gemini could be together.

ChatGPT ecommerce traffic, though far lower than traffic from organic search, tends to convert 31% higher than traffic from organic search. Google has filed a patent suggesting it could replace your landing pages with its own in certain cases. Search is still driving traffic though the concept of Google-Zero continues to be proven untrue. And, in a SEO must-read, a piece in the March 5th edition of Search Engine Land offers three extremely strong recommendations on why some industries and websites struggle in AI search. All this and much much more in the Age of the AI Wars edition.

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The Agents are Amassing Edition

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:46:12 +0000

The adoption rate of Agentic AIs appears staggering. Making, deploying, and managing AI driven agents is easier than ever. This, of course, introduces a myriad of security concerns, many of which will become apparent faster than we think. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about security and privacy concerns with Clawdbot and Copilot. Google's AI Mode is operable in 53 new languages. Search Console's new AI powered configuration tools went live this week. Users can trick out and customize GSC reporting. Bugs reported in Google's reviews system with local reviews disappearing randomly. Another bug is reported in Google AdSense anchor and vignette ads with the close option not resolving properly. The annual CIA World Fact Book was one of the factual foundations of Google's Knowledge Graph and for most LLMs. Due to Trump cuts, the CIA no longer publishes it. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned in a LA Superior Court about potential harms Facebook and Instagram might pose to children including a risk of social media addiction. As it turns out, a 2015 email sent by Zuckerberg called on Facebook engineers to find ways to increase user's time spent on FB by 12%. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is proposing a tax on social media platforms he says could raise as much as $200million a year for education. Google is showing its overall dominance as its size, ability to invent and innovate, and its financial independence offer it enormous advantages over rivals. According to a study by Kevin Indig, 44% of AI citations come from the first 30% of content. 53% of citations come from the middle of paragraphs. We talk about the scope and implications of Kevin's study. We also have several shorter SEO technique stories covering advisories on anchor text, the impact of JavaScript "unavailable" files, new GSC features, and Google's grip on titles.

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The Transitional Vectoring Edition

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:29:07 +0000

The situation remains normalizing, all facshed up. At least some of the folks working at Palantir are starting to understand what their work is doing to their world. According to reports in Wired Magazine and 404Media, employees of the meta-surveillance giant are not told how their products are extensively used by ICE to target and round-up real people. Listeners will be relieved to know that the CEOs of Apple, Anthropic, and OpenAI have all condemned ICE violence while couching their critiques with sycophantic praise for Trump. Meanwhile, TikTok users have reported they are unable to write the word "Epstein" or express criticism of US Leader Donald Trump. TikTok was recently forced to sell controlling interest of US operations to a group of investors loyal to Trump. TikTok introduced new terms of service allowing it to be even more brazen with personal privacy, ostensibly on behalf of Trump, than the former owner, ByteDance, was on behalf of the People's Republic of China. Same form-fields, bigger pile. It's hard to take the tech part seriously except it makes up the world we work in and it can be deadly serious, depending on who uses it for work.

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The New Roman Times are Changing Edition

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:25:01 +0000

There is no sugar coating how brutal the last week has been. ICE agents murdered yet another regular person in the American federal government's relentless and brutal crackdown on Minneapolis Minnesota. This week's extra-judicial killing was broadcast live to the Internet by dozens of bystanders with mobile phones as was the previous one, just a week before. The mental and emotional burden of accepting this outrageous behaviour is the new normal for the American federal government makes it hard to prioritized our work and coverage of tech. It's especially difficult because so many of the companies our work relies on are lending or selling their tools to the now outwardly authoritarian federal government. This week we note how Canadian social media tool Hootsuite is providing social media services to the DHS and the outrage . We also talk about the Electronic Frontier Foundation's efforts to push digital security training to help people protect themselves in the digital space.

Amidst the chaos, Google is facing another anti-trust suit, this one filed by Californian consumers citing Google's dominance of the search space. Google is, meanwhile, appealing another anti-trust ruling that forced it to share search data with competitors suggesting the courts neglected to consider several of the issues properly. Every time Google goes to court, secrets spill out in court filings. This time some of those secrets address how Google looks at spam. Google worries that if spammers learn how Google deals with them, result quality will degrade. The documents go on to mention how user-side data is used to build and train GLUE statistical models and RankEmbed models. The UK and France are considering banning young people from using social media due to the harms social media can do to teens. Australia banned users under age 16, forcing the removal of 5million accounts (from a population of 28million). OpenAI is introducing test ads to the lower tiers of ChatGPT in the coming weeks. The Financial Times reports they expect to make somewhere in the "low billions" in ad revenues in 2026. Google is not expected to introduce ads to the Gemini environment in 2026. These ads are going to be impression based rather than pay per click. Organic search is up and, (surprise), clicks are down only slightly at a decrease of 2.5% year over year according to a large scale study using Similarweb data. All this and a lot more in a densely packed episode as our New Roman Times start to change forever.

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The Search Goes on Amidst it All Edition

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:44:53 +0000

Elon Musk's AI-Grok continues to churn out non-consensual images of people including sexualized images of children, an issue that continues into this week. Google is integrating core search signals into its AI Experience in AI Mode and AI Overviews. This, along with Personal Intelligence, the ring that binds all your Google apps that's coming to Gemini and AI Mode soon, will work to "significantly mitigate" known limitations of LLMs. Google is also introducing Universal Commerce Protocol, the new open standard for agentic commerce connecting stores and products to AI results sets. Far from hurting SEO, UCP is likely to introduce new venues for SEO services. Meanwhile, Google's Danny Sullivan took aim at the AIO belief you should create content in easily digestible chunks to better feed LLMs. The theory suggests that smaller sentences and broken down concepts will be easier for LLMs to contextualize and regurgitate. In reality, Google would rather content be created to assist, help, or inform page visitors. They especially don't want people to create two versions of content, one for LLMs and one for the web. Apple and Google make it official, Gemini is the white-labeling itself as the thinking bit of Siri and Apple Intelligence. Google has removed some AI health summaries after an investigation by the Guardian newspaper that found false and misleading information that could put people at risk. In other news, news publishers expect to see traffic drop 43% by 2029 according to a Reuters Institute Report. Stick around to see if you can actually find the final story.

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The Nothing New Year's Back Again Episode

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 19:33:08 +0000

It's a new year which, as with all new years, brings a chance for a renewal, a hope of a new beginning, and in this, the beginning of the second quarter of the 21st century, that hope was dashed within 48 hours with the invasion, kidnapping, and regime change in Venezuela and the killing of Renee Good. These events mark a transit point that suggests the American government will continue its journey away from cooperation and trust and move even faster towards coercion and hate. Beyond what any of the events of the last week mean for Americans themselves, all of this creates an increasingly difficult trade environment for everyone, including Americans themselves.

Meanwhile... The December 2025 Core Upate ended on December 29. Publishers appear to have taken the hardest hits with large scale declines taking place in all venues such as Discover, News, Top Stories, and organic search. One publisher, Tailwind CSS has let go of 75% of its engineers after seeing a 40% drop in traffic from Google. Microsoft is looking for a senior project manager to combat spam on Bing and Copilot. This is an incredible opportunity for someone able to, a) actually tame web spam at Bing, and b) explain how Bing search works to a wider audience like a certain beloved SEO character from days long past once did. Lightning rarely strikes the same place twice but it is known to strike all the time. Why not in Redmond? Google is also hiring, looking for a AI Answers and Search Quality Engineer. Based out of Cambridge MA, the position sounds decidedly less sexy than then Bing position does but, given it's the Internet, most things sound less sexy than the Bing position does. Google is also hiring a Search Intelligence Chief of Staff. This is absolutely decidedly more sexy than the Bing position.

Far less sexy, and almost downright scare, are some of the stuff coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year. We often cover the weirder inventions, this one combining AI with a holographic image under the name, Friend in a Bottle. Far scarier than that is the revelations Elon Musk's AI Grok is being used to create and widely distribute non-consensual nudes based on people's images and what the UK based Internet Watch Foundation is calling, "criminal imagery involving kids".

A study by digital marketing agency Eight Oh Two concluded that 37% of consumers are starting their searches with AI rather than Google. Google is personalizing AI Overviews and AI Mode Answers. Google's John Mueller talks about working with Gemini and other LLMs, and a lot more on the Nothing New Year's Back Again Episode of Webcology

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The Webcology 2025 WTF Just Happened Year End Revue

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 14:17:37 +0000

Five high profile OG Search Engine Optimization experts talk about the year that was and the year that may well be in our annual Year End Revue. Carolyn Shelby - Principle SEO at Yoast, Ryan Jones - Senior Vice President of SEO at Razorfish and the creator of SERPrecon.com, and

Topher Kohen - Legendary Large Scale Publisher SEO, formerly of CBSNews and CNN.com, join Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger in an hour long conversation about the state of the industry, AIs effects on SEO and search, SEO education and skills updating, and our ideas about the SEO world moving into 2026.

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The Christmas Breaks Upon Us So Duck and Cover Soon Edition

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 01:13:57 +0000

The December 2025 Core Update continues to roll out, as one does pretty much every year around this time. Some are seeing results early but there hasn't been a major stir or fuss from the SEO community. That might be because it is somewhat harder to judge early outcomes of a core update based on page ranking or page traffic while these metrics are being effected by the transition to generative AI results and search behaviours. At least it's easier to measure now that Google Search Console is reporting fresher results again. Meanwhile, Google is assuring publishers and SEOs that the web is thriving. They are clearly optimizing the look and output of generative AI responses in both AI Overviews and AI Mode to include more links back to content that either informed or is quoted in the generative response. This optimization appears to be leading to better converting clicks, according to both Google and a report from SEMrush. It is also leading to changes in search user behaviours as searchers adapt to generative AI results appearing more regularly. The SEMrush study showed how those AI Overviews first trickled into results, then surged in the summer, before slightly declining to more regular appearances based on search intent in the autumn.

Meanwhile, several Google spokespersons spent a lot of energy in the past few weeks assuring web marketers that SEO is the way to optimize for generative results and that AIO, GEO, and other acronyms are just evolutions of age old SEO techniques rather than inventions of new ways of doing. Google is introducing two new AI features, DISCO and CC. DISCO will help users make instant apps based on data found in the open Chrome Tabs they're working in. The other is CC, an AI informed morning scroll that will include personal, business, news, calendar, and other items drawn from the myriad of Google services most people use. Google reaffirms the need to keep meta data solid in both render and response formats because their crawlers can't keep up with so many goshdarn JavaScrips that need unpacking in an AI driven universe to unpack them. We talk about a lot more Googley stuff too but, speaking of packing, Donald Trump's Truth Social is getting involved in a fusion nuclear generation scheme that might literally leave Trump with what amounts to an unlimited source of power. And on that, all of a sudden it's time for a much needed winter's break. We're back sometime before the New Year with the Webcology 2025 WTF Happened Year End Revue - staring a cast of veteran SEOs looking backwards and forwards and whatever's in between. Happy Holidays to everyone out there. Be save, be well, be loved, and rank well.

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The It's Getting to Look A Lot Like A Core Update Edition

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 02:55:21 +0000

It's the middle of December and throughout the Web, all the crawlers are stirring and AI Bots getting fed. The products displayed on folk's sites with due care, in hopes that St. Googlishous would bring traffic there. Suddenly somewhere in GA4 there arose such a clatter, I had to get off of my ass to see what was the matter. And then what from Schwartz's deli of news briefs should appear? Notes that another Core Update was already here... Perhaps it's not such a big deal however as Google confirmed it issues core updates more frequently than previously announced. In fact, Google performs several unannounced core updates each year. This isn't really a surprise but then again, neither is a major update in mid-December. Google seems to do it every year.

We welcomed legendary SEO Jenny Halasz to the show to talk about her new book, "AI Powered Content Marketing and SEO", co-authored with Catherine Seda and published by Pearson O'Reilly. We also talk about the Yext study that reveals more about how the Local Pack gets formed, the 1-year long deal-cap being imposed on Google, Microsoft's pull back on Copilot due to lack of user interest, Disney's $1Billion deal with OpenAI that will bring AI versions of Mickey and Darth Vader together again, Megadrama in the Metaverse, Operation Bluebird, the OAI-SearchBot Crawler, how Google Shopping crawlers are too fast for your JavaScript, more links in AI Mode, and a lot more stuff you need to know before the web slows down for the early winter break.

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A Cyber-Funday Mass Outage Edition

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 18:11:50 +0000

It was a long week following a long Thanksgiving weekend that opened on CyberMonday with a login-outage at Spotify. Folks who logged out of their Spotify accounts on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday awoke to a virtual lockout which was finally cleared between 3 and 5pm. Google Search Console reports are lagging a couple days behind. This podcast was recorded on a Thursday and that data hadn't been updated since Monday. The Trump administration will add social media inspections of all new H-1B applicants and their H-4 dependents to the list of student and exchange visitors it already inspects. The order forces all applicants to turn their social media privacy settings to "public" in order to allow for inspections. Google and other competitors, mixed with the realities of not owning a the operating system, are causing massive problems of Sam Altman and OpenAI. OpenAI has declared a Code-Red after the release of Google's Gemini 3. OpenAI's ChatGPT needs to urgently improve the chatbot's personalization, speed, reliability, and ability to understand a wider range of queries. Meta is investing a lot more in the Metaverse moving forward. The popular Messenger app is going to be killed quite quickly adding to the resource base being reallocated to the virtual reality project. For transactional or commercial searches, Google's AI Mode is seen delivering traffic for 69% of queries. Google is investing in a massive Gemini App UX overhaul. Google adds LLMs.txt to Search Dev Portal, and then quickly removes them. LLMs.txt documents are present at developers.chrome.com. Do not set-and-forget AI Max or you might max out your budget awfully quick. All this discussion and a lot of Google tips and comments in a nearly two hour long Cyber-Funday edition of Webcology.

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The Thankful for Those Giving Us So Much Change Edition

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 17:54:30 +0000

Even Google's Gary Illyes is saying it, "the change is hard to accept" in regards to the evolution of AI in search but that SEM and SEO will coevolve with search, just like it has the past 30 years. That optimism is something to be thankful for, even if AI is likely to mess up thousands if not millions of Thanksgiving dinners as it mashes more than potatoes with pinches of this and that drawn from different similar recipes and mixed together to forge something predictably unpredictable. We also talk about how Google unleashed the awesome powers of NanoBanana Pro on Google search and Ads, a Motoko Hunt article on How AI's Geo-Identification failures are Rewriting International SEO, Google Ads in AI Mode, the continuing Zero-Click realities faced by many publishers, how the multiple client Google MCC profiles kept by agencies are seeing a rise in hijacks, and a whole lot of other Googly goodness in a Thanksgiving Week edition of Webcology

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The Monopolies Come and Monopolies Go Edition

Thu, 20 Nov 2025 19:22:17 +0000

Adobe bought SEMrush in a $1.9Billion dollar deal putting SEO back in the middle of the boardroom again. Jim and Kristine discuss the purchase, Adobe's intentions, and the implications of Adobe owning SEMrush, Search Engine Journal, the SMX Conference circuit, and other important assets in the search marketing world. In other breaking SEO related news, someone related to search going by the name Al Seckel, performed reputation management services for Jeffery Epstein according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee. Meta is not a monopoly, according to a federal judge. Google is introducing six options for publishers to control AI crawlers (hint: none of them actually give publishers much control). Tons of Google advice, and much more in an episode that acts like its seen monopolies come and monopolies go.

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The Major Moves of Mid-November Edition

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 17:12:45 +0000

The relentless shifts towards AI powered everything being everywhere in the digital environment are accelerating and the evolution of digital marketing services is starting to keep pace. Previsible, which recently bought the legendary agency Internet Marketing Ninjas, announced the acquisition of Googlite founded data-driven search agency Improove. Google introduces Opal, an AI tool that it claims can create scalable content and apps for search campaigns as a Google Labs project. This contradicts virtually everything Google's previously said about using AI generated content at scale so it might be Google moving into the search marketing space on purpose or it could be one part of the Googleverse running ahead of another without first making sure their narratives aligned with each other. Meanwhile, we've learned how much it will cost for Gemini to white label itself to Apple's Siri, $1Billion per year. Apple will pay Google a cool $1B to have Gemini act in the background with Siri's familiar tone in the foreground. This while Google is accused in a civil suit of using Gemini to track private communications of users in email, messaging apps and video-conferencing sessions. The case, Thele v. Google LLC, 25-cv-09704, is being heard in a district court in San Jose. Google is also defending its algorithmic actions targeting parasitic SEO programs after the EU announced an investigation into a complaint that Google intentionally demoted several news sites in search results. It may be a case of abuse of a parasitic complaints process. Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta is openly talking about quitting and founding his own startup. LeCun has said he no longer believes in the long term viability of LLMs. Canadian Bitcoin mining giant Bitfarms is winding down its energy on grinding out bitcoins to focusing on becoming an AI data center powerhouse. This, and so much more on a long and sort of flu-ridden episode of Webcology. BTW, PSA --> Sickness sucks. Get your flu shot ASAP.

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The Grok it, All CEOs Should be AIs Edition

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 14:22:18 +0000

In a week where Telsa shareholders are likely to award CEO Elon Musk a Trillion dollar pay package, rival technologarch Sam Altman says he'll be ashamed if OpenAI wasn't the first company to be run by an AI CEO. This start a debate between Jim and Kristine in which Jim suggests the C-Level could easily be the right place to replace workers with AI in order to improve corporate bottom lines. Microsoft warns OpenAI APIs are being abused as backdoors for espionage. While they don't elaborate on what kinds of espionage they're warning about, the ability to misuse built in capabilities of the OpenAI Assistants API leaves it ripe for hacking. Google and Bing are now indexing content from Elon Musk's AI written Grokipedia. Google's new agent has been officially named, Google-CWS. If you see this name in your logs, it's a Chrome Web Store fetcher. Meanwhile, Japanese researchers have successfully "mind-captioned" ideas humans are mentally visualizing, Amazon is suing Perplexity after Comet AI agents ignored Amazon's initial cease and desist letter. That C&D was likely as impolitely worded as the C&D the MPA sent to Meta over the use of PG-13 rating designations though it's not like Meta really cares about the niceties of stuff like that... Recent documents reveal Meta knowingly made billions from ads it knew to be fake, deceptive, or outright scams. YouTube has now locked the sidebar on mobile ads, taking away the user's option to close them. Gemini is going to be part of the Google Maps experience helping people better understand places, directions, and that local landmark that sort of looks like Lincoln's hat. Oh... Google's testing a new version of AI Mode in a side-by-side A-B test. Users will be asked which version they prefer based on the tone of the generated response. AI Mode is getting new agentic powers, including the ability to research and book event tickets, beauty shop times, or wellness appointments. Seer Interactive data shows AI Overviews drove a 61% drop in organic CTR and a 68% drop in CTR from paid search. SEO researcher Kevin Indig also noted LLM referral traffic is shrinking. He first reported referral traffic "... grew 65.1% since January," but in a more recent study has noted a drop of 42.6% in LLM referred traffic since July. Google Merchant Center is making it easier to track creative video content with a creative content section. All this and so much more in what was actually a quick edition, made more efficient by our new AI driven CEO.

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The Browser Wars - Rise of AIs Edition

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:26:33 +0000

OpenAI has launched its new browser Atlas built to compete with Comet, Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium based browsers. As with other AI based browsers, Atlas comes with a slew of amazing self-directing features along with the potential for a long term mess of major security flaws, exploitable bugs, and the threat of malicious prompting. These are the earliest generations of AI based browsers so both problems and rapid improvements are inevitable. While AI is being added to virtually everything, two federal judges warn it should not be used in law noting how judges and clerks using AI in their writing have led to serious errors in US court rulings. Meanwhile Microsoft has added Harvard Health sourcing to Copilot. Reddit is suing Perplexity and SerpAPI over their scraping of Reddit data from Google's search index, which contributed to Google's decision to severely limit the size of results sets available to APIs. We get more information about impression loss at GSC. Google notes that links, technical SEO, and migrations can't fix craptastic quality issues. We're assuming they're talking about content but not being as clear as possible. Research shows LLMs are used for research and information and websites are used for buying as conversions from LLM traffic tends to be lower than those sent by Google search. All this and more on a truly browserific edition of Webcology.

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The AI Test Pivot Edition

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 13:15:26 +0000

Google is experimenting with several AI additions to several more Google products as it fixes bugs in its organic Google search product. It is getting to feel like SEOs are getting a better handle on how to work with and affect AI generated responses as generative AI reponses find their ways in between a greater number of user experiences. A small survey by Kevin Indig revealed a lot about user behaviors and AI drawing conclusions which included; AI Mode is sticky, clicks from generative AI responses tend to be transactional, and AI Mode matches site type with search intent. Another survey by enterprise platform Yext shows AI responses tend to rely on information from brand controlled sources rather than Reddit or YouTube. SEO researchers have found several ways to manipulate AI models, one of which is to fake publishing dates for better "freshness". Before getting too fresh with AI, one should consider former Google CEO Eric Schmidt's fear that AI models can be hacked and used for nefarious and even dangerous purposes by bad actors. Regardless of Eric's trip, Google's lawyers and lobbiests are working hard to convince the courts to allow Google to add Gemini to virtually everything by not punishing the company further in the ongoing Anti-Trust settlement.Gemini is close to taking control of Chrome Browsers along with Windows and Andriod operating systems while OpenAI is working on transforming into an operating system itself. Google has added NotebookLM to its list of user-triggered crawlers or fetchers. The WordPress legal saga is back on again, Microsoft talks about writing and preparing for AI crawlers, and Google apears to be again expanding the heavy lifing Google Business Profiles is doing with the introduction of GBP Insights. All this and lots lots more...

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The IT's My Party I'll AI When I Wanna Edition

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:22:10 +0000

Jim frets as his birthday comes up for renewal again next week. Meanwhile, Google's head of search, Elizabeth Reid was featured on an Economic Times podcast last week talking about the future of search, the effects LLMs have had on both search and user behaviors, the expanding roles of Agentic AI, and how important India and its extraordinary wealth of tech talent will be to Google's future. OpenAI announced its new Agentic Commerce Protocol which gives merchants a way to build agentic commerce experiences with ChatGPT users effectively bringing instant checkout to ChatGPT. Bots might be represented as traffic but a TollBit study shows Google sends 831 times the number of actual visitors to webites than AIs do. Video search is high in AI searches with YouTube being, by far, the dominant channel. Perplexity's AI search driven Comet Browser is now free and available to all users. Disney characters are being removed from sometimes sexually charged chatbots just as Tilly Norwood makes an appearance as a AI character created by production studio Particle6. Meta is going to sell targeted ads based on users' AI chats. Google is introducing a Gemini powered Google Home speaker/vocal interface in spring 2026. Google AI mode is getting better at analysing images and has introduced agentic features to US based users. Google Ads Reporting might have been affected by the num=100 change including possible issues with keyword recommendations. All this and far more on a preparty edition of Webcology.

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The Darksteel and the Circle of Life Edition

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 13:21:37 +0000

Google's August 2025 Spam Update ended four weeks after it launched in late August. Its impact was fairly significant however tracking it will be complicated by the num100 parameter change on Sept10. The bAD bug that overwhelmed some Google search users with ads has also been fixed. We learned Google is testing an AI search option codenamed Darksteel, which is as cool a name as Google has ever come up with. We figure they got Gemini to name it. Meanwhile the Trump regime has increased the fee for a H-1B visa 10x to $100,000. The move caused near panic in the tech world until the largest employers remembered they could still outsource the work and make it look like it was domestic. While smaller players in the US tech world remain worried, Canadian and European officials were seen whistling, cheering, and clicking their heels discretely. TikTok is about to be moved from Bytedance to Trumpworld as Trump allies Larry Ellison, Marc Andreesen, and Fox News are said to be acquiring what appears to be a US version of the video platform. Google is facing the spectre of another breakup as the DOJ has Google Ad Manager in its sights to settle the second US based anti-trust case. A previous settlement in the first anti-trust case resulted in a next-to-nothing punishment. Microsoft has added Anthropic's Claude AI models to 365 Copilot, a sign of evolution in its relationship with ChatGPT. Google Search Live is now live in the US. This allows a user's voice and camera input in AI Mode. Google is likely introducing an authentication process for SEO tools and crawlers. Google is testing AI generated product summaries in AI Mode product listings. These stories and a lot more...

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The Days the Music Died Edition

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:18:06 +0000

There are very dark days ahead as the Trump administration falls further towards fascism down the authoritarian hole. Between the suspension of late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel and the announcement a non-entity was going to be declared a terrorist organization is an intersection of brutal clampdown on free speech and the freedom to dissent.

Meanwhile, Google appears to be testing the end of parameters in search strings in a bid to tame the effect of bots and AI crawlers on its own search systems. This has had the likely unintended consequence of breaking most search rank tracking tools. It has also produced a drop in search impressions of many websites in Search Console as queries that last week produced results (and thus impressions) no longer do, leading many to wonder how much of their traffic was bot traffic and how much was real. OpenAI has admitted that hallucinations aren't simple engineering or training flaws but are mathematically inevitable. Meanwhile OpenAI has improved its search functions with a focus on factuality, shopping, and formatting of results. Bing is adding ads to image search. Alphabet, Google's parent company is now worth a staggering $3 Trillion after a 32% increase in share values since the start of 2025. They might need the extra money as Rolling Stone publisher Penske is suing Google over its content and published material being used in AI Overviews. Bing appears to be investing a lot more energy into local search with a pending revitalization of Bing Places being teased to business owners in a recent Microsoft email. Lastly, Google has not added an AI Overview filter for Search Console as reported by a fake "Platinum Product Expert" in a Google forum. Sadly, Google is going to be as opaque as always around AI Analytics.

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The AI a la Mode Edition

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 13:52:56 +0000

AI Mode has moved beyond basic English and is now available in Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese. AI Mode is also available in autocomplete and is said to soon be the default of search itself. And that's just what Google's got going. Apple is working to introduce a newly improved and vastly smarter version of Siri and an AI powered web search tool in 2026. Alibaba has introduced a translation AI that is vastly smarter with a fraction of the error rate of competitors. Court documents show Google recognizes the open web is in "rapid decline". Amazon is experiencing a significant drop in search visibility according to new data from Audience Key. Reddit launches Pro tools for publishers in Reddit Pro, and, a study shows that while 95% of ChatGPT users visit Google on a regular basis, only 14% of Google users got to ChatGTP. Rumors of search's demise are greatly exaggerated. Google has updated the search quality raters guidelines adding AI Overview examples and YMYL definitions. These are just a few of the dozens of stories we touch on this week in an AI everywhere edition.

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The Monopolists Anti-Accountability Edition

Thu, 04 Sep 2025 14:29:43 +0000

A GoFundMe campaign has been established to help pay Alan Blyweiss' family pay for his end of life arrangements and to helping classroom teachers buy school supplies through the Make a Wish Foundation. The August 2025 Spam Update continues to mulch its way through Google's index with few changes reported thus far. The rollout might take several weeks to complete. Google has updated its policies and guidelines for Google Business Profiles. There's a lot to go over so we're referring listeners to SERoundTable for highlighted details. The penalty for one of the Google Anti-Trust cases has been announced. Speculation had Google losing one or more parts of its business such as the Chrome browser after being declared a monopoly however the judge only ordered Google to share some data with its competitors. Released court records have shown us a bit more about how Google operates, including the FastSearch process of rapidly checking the veracity of AI generative statements. We also learn more about how Google ranks and scores documents in its index. A study shows AI and organic search converting at relatively even rates, WordPress introduces a new AI building tool called Telex, Character AIs (including one with that domain name) might be unsafe for children (duh?), Google fixes its crawl problem, and, Google's crawl budget is generally unrelated to algorithm updates. All this and a lot more ...

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Interview with Dixon Jones, CEO of Waikay.IO

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 04:00:22 +0000

A wide ranging interview with the founder of AI knowledgebase tool, WAIKAY.IO

Dixon has been instrumental in the founding and growth of three major SEO / SEM tools, Majestic Links Tool, Inlinks, and now Waikay. We talk to Dixon about AI, what Waikay means, how it works, and we end up talking about the future of search.

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The What Does Waikay Know About AI's Views on You Edition

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:24:28 +0000

This was a mostly news episode that ends with an extraordinary interview with Dixon Jones, founder and CEO of AI tool Waikay. We have a long talk with Dixon that lasted about 45 minutes about AI tools, how search has evolved to this point, and thoughts on growth of AI tool sets. We figured we'd stick it on the end of this show and also publish it as a stand alone interview. Before we get to Dixon, it's too early to call it but fears of an AI bubble bubbled to the surface this week on the heels of last week's study showing relatively low ROI for the $40B invested in AI by large corporations. The speculation was spurred on by the always sort of super-squirrely Sam Altman who stands to gain most if other AI contenders fail. Meanwhile, Google announced its Google Trends API was going to remain in alpha release for a little while longer, we learn a bit more about the psychology of working with AIs, xAI's Grok chatbot allowed Google to index more than 300,000 user conversations, Meta's chatbots caught doing all sorts of awfulness, DeepSeek speaks for the CPP, talk about publishers and site traffic patterns, John Mueller reminds folks that hype often precedes scams, and much much more.

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The Define AI as it Weirdly Goes Wild Edition

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 13:29:17 +0000

The AI makeover of everything is well underway and we're at the point where the most obvious problems are becoming more obvious amidst the hype. This week's vibe is partially informed by Kristine's annual visits to the Blackhat and DEF CON conferences where Kristine came across AdHacks by the Russian Mob, ways to subvert Gemini using popular Google apps like Gmail and Calendar, and how hackers can now prompt inject using AI agents without their victim taking an unfortunate action. Meanwhile, OpenAI is building a browser that will be agentically controlled, Grok is still weirdly obsessed with Taylor Swift, Leaked Meta documents show rules where chatbots can have adult chats with children, Perplexity offers Goolge $34.5billion for Chrome, Google confirms it wants AI generated content to be edited by humans, Gary Illyes reminds us why Google needs to control the signals it looks at, Microsoft wants to know how often your conversions come from AI driven clicks, and Google might be using generic undocumented crawlers.

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The Lord I was Born a Can of Spam Edition

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 10:21:37 +0000

Google has brought AI Overviews to explain lyrics its users search for. We expect results to be interesting, if not enlightening. Meanwhile, AI Overviews and AI Mode are now live in the UK. There are a couple WordPress vulnerabilities to warn listeners about, Open AI launches "Study Mode", Signing bonuses and huge contracts for AI superstars skyrocket a tiny few into elite athlete pay levels. More issues with vibe coding, this time sort of uncomfortably close to home, more of how everything old is new again when it comes to how AI and search work together, a reiteration from another Google spokesperson that good SEO gets the goods in AI result sets, Google AI Mode expands user tools, and lots, lots more. Hey Google, what did they mean when they wrote, "Lord I was born a can of spam, trying to make a living and get out of this damn can?"

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The Zero Click Pew Pew Pew Edition

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 10:15:56 +0000

A newly released study from Pew Research confirms what SEOs have been seeing for months, search results with an AI Overview or other generative response get far fewer clicks. A vibe coding fiasco sees an AI make a desperate series of mistakes in a self described panic, Trump removes most if not all guardrails from AI development in a major Silicon Valley announcement, Meta revealed a prototype device that controls computers with hand gestures, Microsoft headhunts Googlites, Google says it does not crawl LLM.TXT files, and most importantly, Google says you don't need nothing but good ol' SEO when it comes to success in AI. Ignore all Pewny results and click this link now.

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The Unlike Cloudflare the Ninjas Are Previsible Edition

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 14:32:42 +0000

Interesting news from the business world. The Internet Marketing Ninjas were acquired by SEO consulting firm Previsible. Founded in 1999 by legendary SEO Jim Boykin, the Ninjas were one of the oldest digital marketing firms in the world. The June 2025 Core Update continues with some suggestions there are minor gains for

some lucky sites affected by the series of Helpful Content Updates that started in September 2023. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince announced on X that Gemini was already blocked at Cloudflare by default. Perplexity and ChatGPT both launched their own web browsers this week. Rather than being built to compete with Chrome, the two browsers appear to be designed to be adapted to specific tasks. We have the unique and unfortunate opportunity to report on the complete transformation of our industry in vaguely real time. It stinks to spend time on but you need to know. Elon Musk owned AI, Grok, has become a full-on Nazibot, praising Hitler and calling for another Holocaust. This happened after Musk declared Grok too woke and removed many of the safety barriers regulating Grok's conceptualization and its output. As Jim reminds us, this is eerily reminiscent of how the genocide in Rwanda happened. Grok's change has pushed X's CEO Linda Yaccarino to resign after Grok sexually harassed her in a brutally misogynist series of tweets. We have nearly two dozen other stories relating to Google, Bing, or Generative search as well! It's all about being as visible as a Ninja, Previsible.

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The Core Update Cometh Back Edition

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 18:25:10 +0000

We have a special guest this week and a half hour long interview with San Diego based SEO, Nick Musica in which we get to geek out on the sweeping changes in search and how they affect Technical SEO. Also, Google finally released a post AI Mode Core Update earlier this week. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger discuss what might be coming in the July 2025 Core Update. The world's largest CDN, Cloudflare, is creating a means to charge LLMs for access to your data, to block LLMs entirely, or to continue allowing free access. We'll see what other CDNs do in response. Google introduced MUVERA, an improvement on multi-vector retrieval. According to a Similarweb study, nearly 70% of searches for info from news sites ended in a No Click search result. Google's AI mode is showing inconsistencies in sourcing material but is also experimenting with adding site names to citations. All this and more on a long summer's day edition of Webcology.

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The Recognizing What We're Losing Edition

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 23:32:27 +0000

The search industry mourns the loss of foundational SEO Jill Whalen. Jill's impact on the earliest decades of SEO set the template for the industry we know today. Every old school SEO was directly touched by her in some way, most of us learning how to think about content through her and the High Rankings forum. We also learned to form a strong sense of SEO ethics because of Jill. Her influence on the industry was and remains enormous. We also mark the passing of former Clix Marketing CFO and partner of PPC Rockstar Davis Szetela, Wils Murphy. Wils was a wonderful soul who was a beloved part of the early conference speaker scene.

The show covers a range of topics, starting with Google's head of search, Liz Reid's thoughts on the transition to the AI era, the effect of AI Overviews on clicks, the effects of AI on critical skill sets, Google's legal battles in Europe and the United States, the loss of copyright protections in a recent lawsuit filed by Sarah Silverman against Meta, and a lot of SEO related stuff.

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The Recognizing the Great Decoupling Edition

Thu, 19 Jun 2025 23:25:06 +0000

Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the decouplings happening in the SEO industry and in tech in general. A major topic is the decoupling of click activity vs. impressions seen in Google Search Console as AI Overviews are rapidly creating a zero click search environment for research and informational queries. At the same time, parts of our society are decoupling with reality, an example being the concept that funding rural broadband Internet access might be an example of a "woke handout...". We also talk about Google SEO, Google's anti-trust cases, Meta offering Open AI engineers massive bonuses to poach top talent, the future of government by AI, Google AI Mode, Google URL structure, and more...

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The AI Affected Circus Effect Edition

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 15:59:57 +0000

SMX Advanced is back. The show is happening live, for the first time in public since the pandemic, in Boston this week. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger recall the traveling circus atmosphere of the early conference circuit. Meanwhile Google is trying to reduce redundant Googlers in the Search and Ad units with a voluntary exit buyout program. This is happening while Google's systems are reporting a number of weird bugs with business profiles disappearing, Discover numbers appearing to flatline in GSC, some search Ads not displaying, and a GSC API that's been broken since early June. We also look at a post-Musk DOGE on reports of data leaks, and secret transmissions of public and White House data. The world at WordPress is changing with a splinter group called FAIR establishing a mirror system to allow all WordPress players access to plugin and platform updates. As FAIR moves forward, Matt Mullenwig's Automattic says it will start contributing to the WordPress ecosystem again after a months long pause.

Over in the world of search, there are several stories on AI development and training including sycophantic AI, Apple's AI accuracy collapse, the need to feed more written work into the training chasm, and the Wikipedia editor's rebellion against AI summarization. We note how different AI Generative Engines seek summaries from different sources, and how the majority of AI search traffic comes from Desktop rather than mobile SERPs. Google confirms AI Mode will increasingly be incorporated into all search results and a former Rockstar notes how everything old in SEO is still relevant today by breaking down the foundations of AI search over the last 15 years.

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The They'll See You When You're Sleeping Edition

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 14:10:24 +0000

What do you get when you mix a web that remembers everything with software that can mine the depths of that everything to draw a frighteningly accurate picture of everyone, everywhere, all the time? You get what we're all going to get with the Trump administration using Peter Thiel's Palantir platform to create meta-files on every American citizen and very likely a lot of non-American citizens. This move comes after months of allowing ex-POTUS darling Elon Musk's DOGE pillage federal databases that were once considered sacred for the personal files of American citizens and files relating to government activities. Musk, who recently fell out of favor with Trump over something to do with a fist fight, a lot of drugs, and the deputy chief-of-staff's wife, wrote that, "without me Trump would have lost the election". More to come no doubt.

Meanwhile, Neil Patel's NP Digital is being sued by FTX, the crypto-scheme that made Sam Bankman-Fried infamous. Among a number of other accusations, FTX suggests NP Digital was selling them the same services it sold similar services to other business for 12X less than it charged FTX. Google notes it is seeing more searches using AI, Reddit is suing Anthropic for training on Redditor data, Amazon wants to go robot, X disallows AI models from training on X user content, Google says Gemini 2.5 Pro codes, and we discuss the Great Decoupling of clicks and impressions, and much much more.

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The Google Goes AI Everything While X Marks the Grok Edition

Thu, 15 May 2025 13:52:26 +0000

Google AI Overviews are expanding test markets in Europe to Turkey, Sweden, and the Netherlands in advance of Google I/O. Google launched a free Generative AI Certification training program with the actual certification exam costing $99US. Google introduced "Discussions" in beta. Discussions is meant to replace Reddit as a primary source of livetime AI training resources by encouraging search users to add comments and conversation about specific topics which can then be used throughout the Google ecosystem. AI training is even more important as Google continues to commit to an AI Everything stance. Meanwhile, Elon Musk's Grok has evolved from plucky truth-teller to insane drunken uncle over night with talk of genocides against white South Africans and questions about the validity of facts about the Holocaust. xAI suggests a rouge programmer is responsible however the chatbot's offensive rewriting of history continues at time of recording. Speaking of Grok, the Technology Transparency Project publicly flagged several X accounts as likely linked to US-sanctioned terrorist organizations. The group suggests terrorist groups are using Grok to write propaganda on their behalf. Furthermore, they suggest terrorist groups are using the X tip-button as a monetization tool. In other news, a Michigan State University researcher has linked belief in fake news stories to an emerging psychological issue called Problematic Social Media Use syndrome. In other news, Bing Search APIs are set to retire on August 11, 2025. The APIs will not be replaced however users are urged to consider Grounding with Bing Search as part of Azure AI Agents to incorporate realtime web data with generated LLM responses. We also learned that Google has been rethinking their search stack and are considering how fundamental components of search can be reimagined in a LLM environment. AIOverview links are all considered position 1 in Search console while 43% of AI Overview links point back to Google search results. All this and a lot more in a heavily Googlized edition.

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The Truth about Badger Licking Edition

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 20:40:00 +0000

Google is fast approaching the FIND OUT stage of its multiple anti-trust cases with the US Department of Justice and EU regulatory bodies. It is very possible the DOJ could order Google to sever its relationship with its Chrome browser in coming months. That leads to speculation on what other decisions might be coming down and how throwing spanners into the cogs of the machine Alphabet has built might effect Google's operations in the future. Those wags at OpenAI suggested they would be happy to take Chrome off Google's hands if the courts order it. Meanwhile, there's more controversy over OpenAI's restructuring plans, Google was caught forcing Motorola to block Perplexity.AI on certain phones, Meta's oversight board is suddenly worried about Meta's new policies effecting human rights, US search ad revenues grew by nearly 16% in 2024, and according to Gemini "You can't lick a badger twice". We know that last statement to be untrue but won't be answering any questions about it. All this and much much more in this edition of Webcology.

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Mikkel deMib Svendsen, SEO Master of Course

Sat, 19 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Mikkel deMib Svendsen is a SEO Legend. One of the original SEOs, Mikkel was known around early search conferences as the man in the bright orange suit. His almost adversarial take on Google in the early days set a tone and standard for how SEOs felt about working with the search engines in a friendly game of cat and mouse. Mikkel has continued practicing SEO while pursuing several other life passions, including a highly successful side-career as a potter and pottery instructor on YouTube where he has a popular channel. He has also released a massive and highly comprehensive SEO Master Course. We caught up with Mikkel in late March 2025 and got this interview.

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The Ad Strength and Some Levity Edition

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 13:34:39 +0000

Google introduced its new Ad Strength Best Practices Guide which got hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger to pine for the days when the SEO world used cool names like "Ad Strength" to describe stuff. Google has again been declared a monopoly by yet another US court while, just to keep up, a UK based class action over Google's search dominance has been approved. It wasn't a great week for Google legally. It wasn't a great week technically either as a bug continues to exclude the first image in many Product Snippet image carousels. A Financial Times interview with Google head of search Elizabeth Reid suggests Google is getting strong user feedback about AIO results and is looking for new ways to connect originating websites with information in AIO results. We go on to discuss censorship in social media, particularly at Facebook and TwiXter. Bing Answer Snippets is starting to self-reference back to its own search results. Google says structured data does not make your site rank better, again. Google also noted that international search TLDs (ie: Google.ca, Google.co.uk. Google.fr, etc...) will be phased out in 2026 though localization will continue to play a factor in certain result sets. All this and a lot more in a fast paced newsy sort of edition.

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The Technically Speaking is More Fun Edition

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 23:00:00 +0000

A far less political edition than most this year let's Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger spend more time talking about tech news, web marketing, and SEO. We start by marking the movement of Mordy Oberstein as he leaves a highly successful tenure as head of branding at website builder Wix. More than anyone in our memory, Mordy helped Wix overcome what was a difficult reputation which stands as stellar testimony to his powers as a brand marketer. We note how Google Business Profiles is still broken, weeks after reporting the interface was riddled with bugs. Matt Mullenweg's for-profit arm of WordPress, Automattic laid off 16% of its workforce in order to improve profitability and capacity to invest as he moves to restructure Automattic. We also talk about Tinder and flirtbots, the assumption of a right to bend copyright rules by OpenAI, Elon Musk's xAI's $33billion purchase of X (TwiXter) from owner Elon Musk, Bing's expanding Copilot, the gravity effect large brands have at Google, and a lot more fun techie stuff.

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The Education is the System that Fixes Bugs Edition

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 14:43:22 +0000

The March 2025 Core Update continues to roll out though early indicators are showing in search console. Google Business had a reverficiation bug that caused chaos for a few days that appears to be fixed. The White House announced it was going to order a dramatic downsizing of the department of Education and a French scientist was denied entry to the US after messages critical of Trump were found on his phone, which has terrifying implications for the future of American education and training. The US Court of Appeals rejected copyright protection for AI generated works without a human author while Spain announced it would impose massive fines for not labeling AI generated content as such. The EU has again charged Google with violating EU anti-trust rules, setting the stage for another series of rulings against the search giant. OpenAI released o1-Pro which will be the company's most expensive model yet. Facebook's efforts to supress Shara Wynn-Williams book, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism has created a Streisand effect by creating ten times the publicity the book previously had. In other news: Danny Sullivan talks about Optimizing for Google AIO, links in AIOs don't necessarily lead to the same sites on Google search, Google is testing a radically expanded number of search options beyond AI Mode, Google Assist is replaced by Gemini, and Google is crawling JSON files daily. All this and much more in a long but interesting episode.

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The Beware the Ides of March Edition

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 11:12:17 +0000

Traditionally a warning to tyrants and rogue emperors, todays middle of March madness opened with news of Google Core Update rollout, a major vulnerability in a popular WP SEO plug-in, and signs American search users are indicating they're thinking about being in a very sour mood. We also note it is the 15th anniversary of the week Rhea Drysdale saved SEO from a notorious trademark abuser. The Googleopoly woke up to see the US DOJ's 4 remedies to settle the larger of two anti-trust cases. OpenAI calls for free access for all copyrighted materials for AI Training (citing national security), while the Columbia School of Journalism notes how AI Search engines are "confidently wrong too often". Speaking of tyrannical behaviour, Mullenweg is still wegging out over WPEngine and Meta wants its advertisers to connect to GA4. We also talk about how to talk to Google AIO to learn what it thinks about your business, site reputation abuse, robots.txt, low effort content, and so much more...

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The To Get AGI Be a 60 Hour Mule Edition

Thu, 06 Mar 2025 21:00:00 +0000

Olesia Korobka joins us to talk about the SEO Charity Conference taking place online on March 27 for the Ukraine Animal Relief charity SEO for Paw founded by Anton Shulke. Before Olesia jumps in, we talk about Tuesday's State of the Union address in which, among other things, the CHIPS Act was threatened in a weirdly long ramble about bad deals. We also talk about Elon Musk's continued misadventures due to DOGE's misunderstanding of COBOL. Which somehow brought us to talking about Sergey Brin's musings about how a 60 hour work week (Five 12 hour days) brings the perfect blend between hard work and achievement. He figures that's what's necessary if his people ever want to achieve AGI before anyone else does. Achieving AGI is important and could be worth incalculable riches. The most advanced LLM, ChatGPT4.5 places the value of PHD level workers at about $20,000/mth, according to a new service ChatGPT is considering. Meta is about to deploy innumerable AI Agents in service of businesses on Facebook and Meta. It was revealed that Google Ads has mystery shopper ratings but it's a mystery how that works. Google Search Liaison gained an assistant named Rajan. Androids got a brand new scam buster. That and a whole lot more on an outrageous rollicking show. Don't forget about the SEO Charity event on March 27.

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The D.O.G.E. Did What with What Edition

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 23:45:00 +0000

A quick but hardly deep dive into what Elon Musk's D.O.G.E. is doing and the technologies they're abusing to do it starts a conversation about the newest outrages of the week from around the Oval Office. We also talk about OpenAI4.5, a delay in data from the GSC API, CoPilot flying folks into the wrong repositories, the Chegg vs. Google case, Bing's AI Search tests, Google's crawler update spikes and crawl efficencies, Scrubbing search results, and nearly a dozen other Googley things.

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The Chaos of Bugs, Layoffs, Changes, Cheats, & Targeting in a time of a Tyranus Rex Edition

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 23:25:00 +0000

The American president declared himself a king this week. In the meantime, Meta is laying off thousands of people and deleting a number of old live broadcast recordings. TikTok is restructuring towards laying offs too. Google Reviews and Google Business are fixing bugs while Google's Business Profiles support team is absolutely backlogged. Whoddathunkit but,AIs like ChatGPT and DeepSeek might cheat to win simple games. Google makes the Gemini App the only way to access Google's AI on iOS. Google's Ad-Tech users can now target national security decision makers and people with chronic diseases. Most importantly (besides the king thing), Kevin Indig writes-up a meta-study he did of 19 serious studies of Google AI Overviews in Search Engine Journal in a long but SEO must-read article. Lots of other fun Googley stuff in a fast paced episode unafraid to say, "the king is a fink".

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The Compliance is a Buggy Feature Edition

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 16:13:55 +0000

Google fixes a few bugs, gives a quick "how-to" around tabbed navigation, advises about on-page hash-links, and provides a great tutorial on using GA4 and GSC together. Google also increases its results return-speed by 67milliseconds. That's the good stuff this week however it wasn't a good week from a classic "Don't be Evil" perspective. This week Google complied with the executive cultural nullification order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, scrapped a pledge to only use AI for peaceful purposes, shuttered DEI initiatives, and complied with another executive cultural nullification order by removing significant holidays such as Black History, Pride, Holocaust Memorial Day from Google Calendars. We also cover other changes to Google's SERPs, Yahoo!'s AI Answers using "Learn More" links, Facebook whistleblowers, the Scarlett letters AI, the BBC's analysis of LLM written news, and Reddit blaming Google for the evils of weaker than expected growth. Compliance is a bug and that bug is now a feature.

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The Ironies of DeepSeek Edition

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 14:45:20 +0000

The sudden appearance of DeepSeek, an AI developed in China at a micro-fraction of the costs of American AIs has driven conversation this week as its very existence drove down the valuations of the techogiants who thought they had the lock on development of AI models. Gavin Klondike, our resident AI expert, joins us to explain the 5Ws (who, what, where, when, and how) of DeepSeek. We also dive into the Verge's clickbaity treatment of clickbait SEO, the sub-Reddit Revolution as links from X get banned by many Mods, more WP-Drama as cleverly outlined in a Roger Montii piece, more on AI Overviews, and well, much much more. A longer but way more in-depth episode with a great interview to open it.

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The AI and CTRs and Elon Musk's Massive DataCoup Edition

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 15:02:09 +0000

This edition moves back and forth between coverage of several unique areas of search, AI, and web work. We start covering the DataCoup, which is our "deal-with-it" name for the changes being made by Elon Musk and his crew of youthful hackers to the very nerve centers of the US Government and the suspicion an off-the-books version of Grok is being trained on US government data. We note that DeepSeek is likely helping the Chinese state harvest American data almost as quickly as Elon Musk is hovering it up. We report on the use of updates to old press releases to inflate US Immigration activity in the news, Google's rollback of DEI efforts, Whoopi's phoney weight loss ads, YAIhoo being copiloted by Copilot, and the ChatGPT growth study from SEMrush, along with the SEER Interactive study showing AI Overviews destroying organic and PPC CTRs. We mention changes to Google's Quality Rater Guidelines to account for heavy handed use of AI, and Gary Illyes call for websites to focus on originality in content in 2025. We also move through the weekly parade of SEO tips and updates. A fun, fast paced newsy sorta episode.

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A Triumphant and Trumphlephant Technoligarchy Edition

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 14:39:41 +0000

The power of the Billionaires' businesses mixed with the powers of The State. An image from the inauguration showing Mark Zuckerburg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and other tech giants in the very front row showed us how clearly and forcefully the new Technoligarcy is taking charge. That is the very definition of fascism in action. In this episode, Jim and Kristine talk about the shift in power and work to work through their thoughts on how the futures of search, social media, free speech, and democracy itself will play out. And then we talk tech with a full sheet of news stories including, OpenAI's Operator, Operation StarGate, YahAIoo!, Scamtastic SEO problems, Google blacking-out scrapers and crawlers and most SEO Tools, the mislogic of recommending structured data, and a heck of a lot more. Come for the stunned faces, stay for great radio!

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The Start of the Endless Storm Edition

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 21:45:00 +0000

Matt Mullenweg is seeing more legal resistance to his WP-Emperor schtick and reacting like a manbaby about it. In a similar universe, the outgoing President warns of the coming transition to an oligarchy run by big-tech. Meta moves to the far right by removing fact checking and allowing the racist and multi-phobic content back on its platform as alternative facts carry as much or more weight in this new regime than reality does. ChatGPT moves towards agentatic services like scheduling and performing recurring information tasks. Google Gemini joins other AI companies in a training content deal with Associated Press. Gemini is pushing its way into Google productivity products but there's a catch, it comes with monthly fee. Meanwhile, Google saw it's search market share dip below 90% for the first time in the last decade. There's some really cool old-schooly Google SEO news, including advice on author names and comments in reviews, how Google's Web Vitals Chrome extension has been moved to Chrome DevTools Performance panel by default, how all you need is ULR consistency (and more...), and, well, more.

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The Burning the Bridge Between Our Rise and Fall Edition

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 11:53:33 +0000

The world itself is burning as hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk through the sudden and sweeping changes coming to search results pages in 2025. While AI-faked images of the Hollywood sign burning are posted as news on partisan websites we talk about the sudden drought of fresh content for LLMs to train on now that everything ever written has been consumed and the use of AI created synthetic data to putty over an increasingly pockmarked information environment. While highly informed D-list celebrities berate government officials for their hiring practices and inability to control the weather, we discuss how AI generative results removes the concept of "canonically correct" answers in place of a response generated to answer a series of queries as well as possible but not necessarily the same way twice. Facebook has signaled its allegiance to the new order citing the reelection of President Trump as a cultural tipping point at the same time politicized messages overwhelmed the factual information that might help people in what has become the biggest natural disaster in American history. We even try to draw ourselves back as we note how much we don't want to be political but all this is happening in the environment we work in and we slowly realize that maybe there's no way to not be political when talking about what's going on. Damn...

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The Old Snakeskin is Shedding on a Newly Strange Space Edition

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 14:37:40 +0000

Welcome to the start of the second quarter of the 21st century. In the Chinese zodiac, 2025 is a year of the Snake, a period of extreme transformation as old ways are shed and new ones adopted. It seems like an apt description of what the coming year will be like. Things are going to change and if the news of this week is any indication, that change is so sweeping and encompassing, it is creating its own vortex in which all that falls in gets weirder and weirder and weirder. Here's a short list of some of the strange stuff we look at this week. Google has decided to be a start-up again. Apple is trying to save Google from the DOJ preferring the status quo over alternatives. Elon Musk's arguments have attracted odd bedfellows in his suit against OpenAI. Kekius Maximus rules Supremacists, and OpenAI's o3 cheated its ARC-AGI test and isn't that smart after all. That's just a start to the strange as we start this new year. We also talk about a lot of Google and Bingly stuff. Best wishes for 2025.

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The It's the End of the Year as We've Known It Edition

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 13:11:22 +0000

An all star SEO panel made up of Mordy Oberstein (Wix Studio), Mark Traphagen (seoClarity), and Jenny Halasz (JLH Marketing) joins hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger to look back at the events, changes, and ideas of 2024 and into a new world of even more rapid change as AI grows from its infancy towards its adolecence. An incredibly interesting conversation between five veteran search marketers, each with a unique perspective on the industry. This is the last show of 2024. On behalf of the hosts, producers, and everyone associated with Webcology, thank you for listening and have a save and happy holiday period. Best wishes for 2025 from all of us.

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Webcology Special Interview: Amit Glatt, CTO and co-founder of Duda

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 14:40:48 +0000

Duda's cofounder Amit Glatt found time to sit with us to talk about the history, evolution, and future of the website builder and management platform he helped create. Since its founding 15 years ago, Duda has grown to become one of the top-tier enterprise website builders on the web. Duda feels like it's on a growth sprint right now. They have some interesting tools for web makers to work with and are committed to developing a better builder for SEOs and professional website developers. Amir himself has brought his decades of education, experience, research, and well earned knowledge to Duda since he cofounded the company in 2009. This was a fun conversation that moves through a range of topics from industry trends to personal and professional decision making.

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The Everything That Goes Around Comes Around Again Edition

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 12:50:06 +0000

A December 2024 Core Update started running a few short days after the November 2024 Core Update ended and mere hours before this episode was recorded live to podcast. At the same time, Google reported minor but persistent indexing issues. Otherwise, Matt Mullenweg was last seen retreating with his tail between his legs following the judicial spanking he received trying to defend his actions at WordPress against WP-Engine in court. Meanwhile, Google throws stones in a grand glass house accusing OpenAI of using its heft to manipulate the generative AI market. The text to video AI Soro has been released to a growing group of testers, Microsoft scraps Skype subscriptions, and the most important story of all, Google releases first version of its quantum chip "Willow". The future happened five minutes ago in a parallel dimension. The infinite number of moose at the door should have said something.

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The Changes Will Intensify Until Morale Improves Edition

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 14:45:51 +0000

Recorded in the week after Black Friday hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk through a bunch of stories affecting the world of search. The November 2024 Core Update conveniently ended an hour before we went into the recording session. We talk a bit about winners and losers and what we think will be the effects of this core update (while jokingly anticipating an upcoming December 2024 Core Update). We also talk about Bluesky's growth and vibe, using AI in unmanned weaponry, Bing withholding data from ChatGPT in Webmastertools, new search features at Bing, new features at Wix Studio, new features for YouTube creators, new rules at Google for dating ads, the very real possibility of Duplicate Content Blackholes in the ether of Google's cyberspace, and a whole lot more. Tune in for an interesting conversation about a sea of upcoming change in the world of search.

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Thankful For the Long Weekend Edition

Thu, 28 Nov 2024 20:37:43 +0000

Twas the eve before Thanksgiving and through the studio's haunts, no creatures were talking or recording our thoughts. The channels all hummed with inactivity because the producers went home to be with family. When out of the ether some showbiz thoughts clattered, The Show Must Go On!, because nothing else matters. - Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger take a last look at the week's news before heading off on well deserved four day weekends. - We cover the ongoing Google Core Update, new news in the ongoing series of WPScandals, the awful BlueSky profile posing as Bill Slawski, LinkedIn trying to up its social game by issuing do's and don'ts, the Australian social media ban for minors under age 16, and a lot more... A long but fun and just about to be post-turkey dinner relaxed edition.

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A Cold November News Edition

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 22:30:00 +0000

It was a busy news week with a continuing November Core Update, Google's Site Reputation Abuse Policy Update and the subsequent major publisher crackdown, the DOJ recommending the sale of Chrome and possibly Android, lost GA4 data, a now missing GSC Experience Report, OpenAI deleting critical incriminating evidence by mistake, Meta level pig-butchering, the TwiXter eXodous, and the promise of BlueSky on the horizon. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger also talk about Gemini AI making death threats, paid advertising appearing in AI Overviews, Bing inserting paid ads into organic search results, SearchGPT becoming the third largest search engine after Google and YouTube by market share, the existence of Google Site Wide, Google Lens for Shopping, and more content avoidance advice from John Mueller. More newsy this week than most but entertaining and hopefully sort of enlightening too.

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The When the Going Gets Weird the Weird Keep Going Edition

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:07:12 +0000

Recorded two days after the 2024 presidential election, Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger contemplate the outcome and how a Trump presidency might affect the tech and search marketing industries. Tech can expect an era of deregulation, starting with Trump's aim to strip away federal safeguards over AI development, deferring any regulatory oversight to individual states. With enormous shifts expected throughout the federal government affecting so many different sorts of outcomes, it's difficult to say with certainty what is going to happen and when. The one guarantee is things are going to get weird, and likely very quickly. The show goes on to cover happenings with OpenAI, SearchGPT, TwiXter, how a flock of bees thwarted Meta's most recent nuclear ambitions. We outline how Microsoft Bing wants to give someone a million dollars and ten people ten thousand dollars, how Google search snippets sometimes contradicts itself, the mundane existence of Google's Jarvis AI, and perhaps the weirdest outcome of all, Trump's anticipated shift of course on the Google anti-trust suits. A wise Gonzo journalist once wrote, "When the going gets weird, the weird get going", and in the spirit(s) of Hunter S. Thompson, that's more or less what we're going to do.

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The Helpfully, No Roads Lead to Recovery Edition

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 17:08:06 +0000

The Helpful Content Update wasn't about the content and the hope of recovery wasn't about to happen. Web publishes hit by the Helpful Content Update in September 2023 who attended Google's Web Creator Summit at the Googleplex this week were told the hope they'd held for seeing their rankings recover were likely in vain and that those placements were gone and not likely coming back. Oh, and it wasn't about the content. Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the disappointment and what disappointed publishers might do. They also talk about how Google has rolled AI Overviews out to over 100 countries, how Google is looking at similarity of content across websites, the no-data bug in GSC, SearchGTP, and the costs to Microsoft of growth through the development OpenAI. The show also looks at a number of pre-election issues and laughs about the 20 decillion dollar decision the Russian courts have leveled against Google. A fun news banter sort of show.

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Webcology Extra: The Fork in the Road at WordPress Edition

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 18:31:58 +0000

Jono Alderson is a well known SEO Consultant, one of the top WordPress contributors, and a bonafide Digital Superstar. He joined Jim and Kristine to fill us in on the backstory and implications of the ongoing drama in the world of WordPress. Jono has been around for a long time. He knows where the bodies are buried and in this interview, he explains how it unfolded to get to where we're at now.

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The Is Something Rotten at WordPress Edition

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 13:38:40 +0000

Longtime WordPress contributor Jono Alderson joins Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger to discuss the very weird goings on at WordPress. The interview starts around the 35 minute mark. Before Jono joins us, Kristine and Jim discuss the news of the week including a short update on the WordPress situation and stories from Google, OpenAI, TwiXter, and more.

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The Acquisitive Conglomerations of Autumn Edition

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:02:41 +0000

A busy, news heavy show has hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger cover three major stories, each of which could occupy a full hour long show. The WordPress mega-drama continues with the founder's faction at Automattic grabbing control of one of their rival WP-Engine's best known custom WP-Contributions, Advanced Custom Fields in a forking incident many think close to theft. Also this week, leading SEO and Digital Marketing Tool Maker, SEMrush acquired one of the industry's leading information resources when it purchased Third Door Media. Third Door publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and also organizes the Search Marketing Expo series of conferences. Meanwhile, Google is replacing it head of search, Prabhaker Raghaven with long time Google executive and Raghaven assistant Nick Fox who becomes head of Google's Knowledge and Information division. Bing is pulling back on several under used features shown on its search results page while both it and Google move to publish full recipes in search results, denying the original writer's a click. Over to our nuclear energy desk it seems that Amazon and Google are also entering the elite nuclear powered corporation category, joining Microsoft in making deals with commercial nuclear energy produces, developing their own small-scale nuclear generation capacities, or buying and refurbishing mothballed reactors such as the Three Mile Island plant. We also share a week's worth of Google information, updates, and explanations.

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The WP-Glitch - Where's My Money Edition

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 23:20:00 +0000

Jim Hedger returns from bereavement time as he and cohost Kristine Schachinger learn that Matt Mullenweg has found a way to make the WordPress controversy much worse that it was when it started by banning WPEngine, establishing a loyalty pledge complete with a box to check to swear your WP-Loyalty, running down investors, getting himself and the commercial arm of WordPress sued for Extortion, and very possibly sacrificing small animals on the beach at midnight. Meanwhile SEOs contemplate what a DOJ mandated break-up of Google might look like while at the same time thinking about how to guide clients through questions about AI bots. X changes the way it pays content creators, and Bing has another one of its own Generative Search Experience rolling out. To round things out, Google pulled a manual job on Forbes Advisor over Reputation Abuse. Google is also rolling out newly AI organized search results and clarifying support for robots.txt fields while dropping support for the "noarchive" meta tag directive. More importantly, Google has updated its Web Search Spam Policies to be clearer about Site Reputation Abuse. We sort of learn how Google pays for all this, by seeing nearly 9,000 ad campaigns established every second!

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The WTFPress Edition

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 13:43:38 +0000

A war is being waged in the deepest heart of the Open Source movement for that movement's very soul. Last week, Matt Mullenweg, the original founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, the commercial arm of WordPress, laid down his version of the law by banning WPEngine from the greater WordPress environment. The dispute centers around money and time contributed to the collective which provides the engineering for WordPress. From Mullenweg's perspective, WPEngine has contributed too little of either after extracting hundreds of millions in revenues over the years. From WPEngine's perspective, "WTF eh?" Webcology hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger try to make sense of a fight that threatens the web's very understanding of what Open Source means. Meanwhile, Sam Altman has pushed OpenAI away from being a non-profit to being a for-profit benefit organization with Altman enjoying a 7% stake in the newly constituted company. This has pushed several key figures at OpenAI, including CTO Mira Murati and Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew to resign in the past week. In other news, Google has killed its helpful Cache feature while updating its Web Search Spam policies. Google also reported and is fixing a noindex bug that caused several JavaScript driven pages to be indexed when Google couldn't read the protocol. The show covered a lot more Google news in what was a busy post-COVID show after Jim caught and was sidelined last week by his first (and hopefully last) bout with the virus.

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The Who Ya Gonna Anti-Trust Edition

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 19:50:00 +0000

So it seems that anyone who's anyone has an anti-trust suit or some other major legal challenge taking place, especially if you're with Apple or Google. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the various anti-trust cases covering two types of Googley advertising monopolies and a spiffy tax dodge scheme the EU's angry with Apple and Google over. We also talk about the introduction of Gemini AI to Google's productivity suite including the feature that can turn your notes into a generic podcast. BTW, "Rutabaga". That's this week's safe word that proves we're real. Kristine introduces a story that suggests families should come up with safe words to combat AI loan scams in which the scammers run a short clip of a voice through AI to convince people's parents to send them money. Twixter is leaving San Francisco and the right wing American propaganda network, Tenet Media is shuttered by the DOJ because they're a front from Russian malfiance. We also talk about a lot of Googley goodness including Martin Splitt's declaration that no Exif Data was parsed to generate those search or image results, Google's spam warnings about misuse of their Indexing API, the move from FID to INP, and how changing your heading heirarchy isn't the massive fix you might think it is. Remember, rutabaga. Accept no substitutes.

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The Cored, Boned and Updated Edition

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 17:07:15 +0000

The August 2024 Core Update ended a week early and it might still be too soon to tell the winners from the losers but one thing is clear, Google can always be depended on to try to do what's best for Google. Some have seen drops in traffic while others have seen increases and still others have seen no changes at all. This update does appear to be setting a foundation for an increase in AI Overviews in results. Webcology hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the effects of this core update, the new International Framework Convention on AI, the DOJ indictment of Russian backed American far-right media empire, advances at OpenAI, how Elon Musk has torched tens of billions of his friends' monies, more legal troubles in Google's present and future, SearchGPT, and a lot of SEO thoughts about Google. This was a fun and fast paced episode.

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The Gemini Expert Tease Edition

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 19:40:00 +0000

As the August 2024 Core Update continues, Google introduces Custom Gems a chatbot framework that promotes the creation and constant training of AI "Experts", digital companions to help Google users go about the business of being hypercreative. This is possibly the greatest challenge to all other AI makers and arguably the most audacious outline for the future of virtual expertise. Back to the core update, some sense of recovery is being felt by many publishers who were hurt during the September and March Helpful Content Updates but there is still a few weeks to go so show hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger warn webmasters to temper their expectations. OpenAI and Anthropic have agreed to allow government to access major new AI models during development to help ensure safety, Twixter is actively interfering in the upcoming November election while it threatens a Brazilian judge who threatens to shut it down in Brazil. This as presidential hopeful Donald Trump threatens to throw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in jail if he interferes in the upcoming election. Yelp is filing its own antitrust based action against Google while a judge in one of the ongoing antitrust cases admonishes Google for not playing fair in court. It's been a busy week. The show does spend a lot of time on a lot of Google SEO matters but it says a lot about the state of the industry when working through SEO issues is less complicated than the legal and ethical challenges facing the biggest platforms in the industry. As we said, it's been a busy week but it's the last days of summer and a long weekend is coming up and September brings serious season back upon us next week.

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An Update on that Update Edition

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 21:13:20 +0000

It's been a week since Google dropped the long anticipated August 2024 Core Update. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about tempering early expectations in what is almost certainly a multi-faceted update, and discuss what SEOs and site owners might expect as the next three weeks grind on. There are promising signs for some and even some reversals of misfortune for others but there's still a few weeks to go before Google placements even out. When the update does end, how the search results will be composed and look for users might change. Jim and Kristine also talk about findings from Mark Traphagen at SEOClarity suggesting that higher rankings lead to higher chances of seeing links in AI Overview results, major issues with AI image generators, the arrest of Telegram app founder Pavel Durov, California's attempts to govern AI at the state level, Perplexity's plans to introduce ads to its AI features, the rise of children's accounts on Twixter, and a lot of Googley SEO stuff. - Note: our apologies for the late show. Jim's Aunt Lynda passed and it was a rather brutal week.

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The Updates of August Edition

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 20:51:41 +0000

To say Google core updates can be pretty big things will seem like an understatement for listeners who got hammered by the Helpful Content Updates that ran in the two previous core updates of September 2023 and March 2024. The much anticipated August 2024 Core Update, the one that hold promise of fixing the mistakes of the past, started to roll out a few hours before this episode was recorded. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about what Google's goals with this update and what website owners can do in the early to mid days as the full rollout is expected to take about four weeks. It was a busy week beyond the core update. Kristine and Jim also discuss Google's two antitrust cases, updates to ChatGPT, a myriad of difficulties presented by Elon Musk, data delivery issues from Google Search Console, a creepy new feature found in knowledge panels, GSC Recommendations, the expansion of Google AI Overviews, how Google tracks crawl budgets, the absurd speed of Effingo, and a whole lot more. Stick around to the very end to hear Google's John Mueller read his latest robots.txt file.

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In the Matter of an Anti-Trust Edition

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:00:00 +0000

After a lengthy and highly revealing trial a federal court has ruled that Google is using its enormous resources to monopolise the search market in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” US District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his decision which has the potential to reshape the business of Internet dominance. We asked lawyer, journalist, and former WMR.FM host Bennet Kelley to explain the scope of the charges and how the ruling might affect Google's future. Bennet is the founder of the Internet Law Center and is considered on of America's top Internet lawyers. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger also discuss the new British government's reaction to Elon Musk's push for racial disharmony in the UK and Europe, an exodus of leadership at OpenAI, the new Search Console feature Google Recommends, and the coincidental timing of Google's announcements it would allow pubic hair grooming ads while it is also testing the new "Snippets you may like" label. From what we hear about anti-trust rulings, the first cuts are the deepest.

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The Core Update :: New and Improved :: Coming Soon Edition

Thu, 01 Aug 2024 13:48:02 +0000

It'll be coming around Mountain View when it comes. It brings the promise of a new and improved, something. Google spokespersons have given Publishers reason to seize hope while Google PR talks about another shot at integrating AI Overviews into SERPs again. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about the pending update while the web world waits for something to come in a Core Update, which apparently is coming soon. They also discuss the new EU AI Act which went into effect on August 1st and tries to govern AI's impacts by grading AI dangers in five easy grades ranging from unacceptable to minimal, election interference at TwiXter, Bing's side by side SERP layout showing a generative AI answer beside ten blue links, the new competition between Microsoft and Open AI as Open AI introduces SearchGPT, Reddit$pectations of pay to crawl, Wix's new AI, how Google actually crawls JavaScript, Google's attempt to outfake deepfakes, How Google's new Hidden Gems and the old Hidden Gems have nothing to do with each other, and much much more.

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The Waiting for Googdot Edition

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:18:05 +0000

Vladimir: Well, shall we go? - Estragon: Yes, let's go. - Stage Direction: They do not move. -- Many publishers are waiting for an imminent Google Core Update hoping this time the wisdom of compassion and perhaps a rewrite of one or more Helpful Content Update cycles will bring them back to the prominence and profitability of page one placements. Google representatives have suggested this update could bring hope or redemption or maybe a bigger bit of traffic. Meanwhile, Google is musing about adding more new and improved AI Overview responses in search results. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about Google's intentions and a number of other topics including Bing's new SERPs that put a Generative Response alongside traditional ten blue links in a split-screen layout, Google's $60MM exclusive access to Reddit data, the advent of ChatGPTSearch, the CloudStrike outage, and a lot more! Meanwhile, a bunch of web based businesses are still stuck at a crossroads, waiting for something to come, something that's almost here, something that'll move them forward. Estragon: Let's Go - Vladimir: We can't. - Estragon: Why not? - Vladimir: We're waiting for Googdot.

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A Middle of Summer Gumbo Soup of News Edition

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 11:29:51 +0000

This is a rare middle of summer heavy news edition but, after a year of constant updates, reactions, retractions, retrenchments, and growing user resentment, it's been a rather busy week for Google. It was also a busy week in A.I., with TwiXter, Facebook, Microsoft, and others. Webcology hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger weave their way through stories ranging from rumours of an imminent Google Core Update, the harmful empathy-gap in A.I., Microsoft Word's new surcharge for custom image generation, more speculation from the great Google May 2024 API Leak, A.I. in local search results, research into Google AIO keyword trends, idle crawler rendering, the goodness of CWVs, and a whole lot more. Tune in, fill up, and enjoy.

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The Bubble of Confusion Edition - Just what search needs today!

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 13:19:42 +0000

Back from a the July 4th long weekend's rest, hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk through events of the last couple weeks, that look like Google and other players in the search world are pulling back from the promise of A.I. generated answers to the real world queries of their users. One example is how Google is showing far fewer A.I. Overviews in result sets today than it was in early May when it announced a disaster ridden shift to the A.I. everything universe. Given the enormous expenses in money and resources used in training, maintaining, and running A.I., economists are speculating on if the hype around A.I. is producing real value or inflating the world's biggest bubble based on rampant speculation. But that's not the confusing part. We also look at some simplified answers to some complicated questions from Google spokespeople who are usually clearer when muddying stuff up. Happily, our reports about the Helpful Content Update and decimation were apparently quite helpful. Some people still think it's Redditiculous how a Reddit expert's opinion can rank above that of a medical, legal, engineering, or other certifiable expert's opinion in search engine rankings. That might be because of the complex dimensions of credible information beyond the flat first one, credibility. Confused? We still are and you might be too but we still gotta sell soap.

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A Give No Quarter at the End of the 2nd Quarter Edition

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 13:30:50 +0000

It was a particularly newsy and seriously silly week. It was also the end of June which is also the end of the second quarter so, for most SEOs, it's reporting season. This year, reports are made more poignant knowing the end of June is also the end of the line for Universal Analytics data, which gets universally deleted on Monday at midnight. It's also the end of the June 2024 Google Spam Update, which concluded a few hours before this episode was recorded. Show hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about UA3 data, how to assess the Spam Update, the implications of OpenAI's purchase of the data analysis and indexing firm Rockset, Microsoft AI's craptastic views on the social contract of content, how Google Search measures its own quality, if AI can perform an effective and actionable technical SEO audit, and a whole lot more.

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The Collision Had Quite an Impact Edition - An interview with Richard Socher

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 17:38:51 +0000

Covering a busy week in search this episode closes with a 20 minute interview with CEO of A.I. driven search engine You.com, Richard Socher. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about Google's freshly launched June2024 Spam Update, some Reddit heavy SERPS, unstoppable AI Overviews, the beneficial myth of traffic diversity, the ups and downs of crawl spikes, Microsoft's recall of Microsoft Recall, and a whole lot more. In the days before the show was recorded, Jim visited Web Summit's massive Collision Conference 2024 where big money, big ideas, and big organizations meet in a three day intellectual frenzy. Jim speaks with one of the earliest pioneers of A.I., Richard Socher in a one-on-one interview recorded near the end of Collision 2024 in Toronto. CEO of You.com, Richard leads what is arguably the most innovative newer search engine. Combining generative AI from several sources with algorithmic search, You.com is working to build and perfect a set of highly proficient A.I. assistants designed around the idea that information should be easily accessible and easy to make use of. It was a fun conversation and a great chance to ask questions of one of the driving forces behind A.I. in search.

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The Is IT Really Broken Edition

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 18:13:33 +0000

Amidst months of controversial punishing updates, a disastrous A.I. rollout, and at least a year of questionable search results, SEOs and general search users are starting to ask if Google is actually broken. If it is working as it's supposed to, why are they trying so hard to fix it? Google says it's a matter of perspective so hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger try to walk through both sets of perspectives. The show also covers take aways from Barry Schwartz's SMX Advanced interview with Google's Elizabeth Tucker, Google's most recent responses to The Leak, a lot of turbulence at TwiXter (including Elon Musk's annoyance at the Apple - OpenAI deal), and, of course, the Apple - Open AI deal itself. An interesting week of as many news items as we can fit in an hour long show.

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The Blogging Continues Until Morale Improves Edition

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 19:23:10 +0000

Maybe it's the eye of a hurricane, maybe it's the calm before a brand new storm. It's really hard to tell these days but after a disasterous rock-eating rollout, Google is pulling back on AI Overviews. The SEO world has mixed reactions to The Leak, which is turning out as predicted, much ado about something but we're not sure exactly what. Some sort of garbled sense of stability appears to be returning to the SERPs as the effects of the March 2024 Core Update and the slew of previous and attendent updates start to play together, more or less as Google planned, or so we think. As the dust settles in Googlandia, the effects of flaky search results are showing in user comments with 54% of people complaining they have to look through more results than they did five years ago to find information, often having to rephrase their queries altogether. Meanwhile, OpenAI workers are asking for the "right to warn" of potential dangers, TwiXter has made distributing porn great again while running paid ads against racist and antisemitic hashtags, Microsoft's Recall AI can be tricked into revealing ever-saved personal data, MozCon20 perceives a crisis, and Google says Mobile First is... actually, we're not exactly sure what they were getting at. Confused? You won't be after listening to this.

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The Google Leak of Faith Edition

Thu, 30 May 2024 16:19:53 +0000

To cap off a disastrous PR month for Google, Mike King and Rand Fishkin published essays outlining the leak of a trove of Google APIs found in an open GitHub owned by Google. The SEO community's faith in Google had already been badly shaken since the series of updates which started back to early autumn 2023 and culminated in the HCU and March 2024 Core Updates. Now, after seeing what was in the documents, many feel as if Google misled or even lied to them. Debate in the SEO community is now fully engaged and already people are marketing new techniques and strategies based on findings they found in the documents that will go down in SEO history as, “The Leak”. Basically, Mike and Rand dropped what appears to be an 800lb gorilla into our midst and that gorilla needs a thorough examination before we let it run wild. To help us do that, we have in the studio one of the few SEOs we absolutely know to be qualified to dig into these documents. Ryan Jones is the Senior Vice President, SEO at Razorfish. He was instrumental in the dissection of Yandex last year and has spent the last few days digging into the documents and sharing his findings.

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The AI Overview Might Push You to Page Two Edition

Thu, 23 May 2024 16:07:28 +0000

Roger Montti, staff writer at Search Engine Journal, joins hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger to share his thoughts on Google's vision of its own future. Roger wrote about this week's Google Marketing Live in NYC in a piece published May 22, "Google To Prioritize AI Overviews Ads Over Organic Search". In it, Roger offers an overview of search results berift of visible blue links. This vision of Google's future will be driven by paid placement rather than the meritocratic set of algorithms Google organic search, which will get relegated so far below the fold it might as well be buried. Any experience with Roger is a well informed though sometimes scary one. This one is both, but, as always, there's hope. You'll want to hear the future Roger sees.

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Alternatives: That Great Big Bing Thing Edition

Thu, 16 May 2024 15:38:20 +0000

This is a seriously fun and highly interesting interview episode. Rather than obsess on what seems like a bad thing we decided to geek out on that Bing thing instead. One of the most open and interesting voices in search, the Head of Search at Microsoft Bing, Fabrice Canel, joins us to talk about algorithmic search and Copilot. As we all know, Google I/O was stacked with announcements suggesting Google is about to change search results to feature AI Overviews and push organic results into the netherregions of page-2 or worse. Bing is taking a different approach and Fabrice outlines how Bing and Copilot work together to present a different, and what he hopes is far better search experience. Geek-warning: This episode will sometimes venture into the weeds but the conversation is light, witty, and hugely informative.

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The Shift in Googleosophy Edition

Thu, 09 May 2024 13:16:12 +0000

There appears to be a shift in Google's philosophies heading into next week's Google I/O conference. Google seems to be trying to change expectations with CEO Sundar Pichai talking about an all AI future and former chairperson Eric Schmidt talking about a future without blue links. Google's reputation for quality has taken a battering recently and many in the SEO community are feeling more than a little misinformed. That's easily understood when you realize Google has used the same terms to describe different things throughout the series of algorithm and core updates that stretch back to last September. In this episode, Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger try to peel back the onion like layers of Googleosopy while trying to offer sensible advice about how to deal with different aspects of the series of updates. Conversation naturally turns to several stories around AI and its efficacy as an engine for information. This was a fun, fast paced episode that tries really hard to keep its patience in the midst of creative destruction.

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The Update Hath Endeth and Yet On It Goes Again Edition

Thu, 02 May 2024 13:09:12 +0000

Happy Cinco de Screwya to everyone about to be impacted... The March 2024 Core Update has ended, sometime last week. It took Google a few days to get around to telling anyone. Perhaps that was because they were too busy experiencing a very difficult week fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities. This was a week of layoffs, job transfers, and lost market share as Google moved to shed expensive people and replace them with less expensive options. It was also a week in which we saw our very first Google dividend (at $0.20/share) and a $70Billion share buyback, both of which set Alphabet shares soaring 15% ahead of news Google was losing market share to Bing and Yahoo. Happy 20th workaversary, Google CEO Sundar Pichai. We also talk about HCU recoveries, Core Update recoveries, tons of things AI, and more on a busy getting over it edition of Webcolgy.

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The Google April 2024 Rotten to the Core Edition #8

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:45:04 +0000

This episode also covers a lot of the week’s general news including the coming of ChatGPT5, Meta’s near universal introduction of AI to Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s upcoming turmoil, how plans to kill the cookie have again gone stale, that Webcology was, this week, named among the top SEO podcasts to listen to in 2024 by Search Engine Journal. Thanks to SEJ and to everyone for listening and contributing to our shared industry in whatever ways you do. We cover a lot of other Googley things but nothing compares to the Google April 2024 Rotten to the Core Scandal. It’s been a long week since yesterday’s news. Mark it in your calendars and diaries, April 24, 2024 was the day Google’s greatest myth was finally busted. Recorded live the day after the world learned conclusively how Google manipulated and degraded results to produce a higher query frequency in order to bump its bottom line, this episode deals primarily with what could be Google’s worst week ever. Google broke the Ghostbuster Protocol and merged the paid and organic streams of interest and in a long, detailed, and absolutely damning 4200 word essay released yesterday, former Google insider Edward Zitron fills in the five-Ws; who, what, where, when, and why. The piece traces the devolution of Google search back to an emergency all hands meeting in 2019 and places blame at the feet of the man who previously led Yahoo Search to oblivion’s great beyond. A stunning and scandalous story is quickly emerging and this marks the first open chapter.

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The #7 Greatest Leap Forward to the March 2024 Core Update Edition, ever.

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 13:36:23 +0000

This episode, recorded in the seventh week of the longest Google update ever, covers a lot of news stories as quickly as we can. Stories range from news about AI and the various players in the industry pushing to integrate AI into everything to general advice on dealing with the various Googly issues search brings. We discuss the new sets of Google videos being made available, marvel at John Mueller's unending well of patience, and marvel at Twixter's carelessness as it auto-converted Xs to URLs. This episode covers a lot of ground in leaps and bounds as we move forward towards the inevitable end of the update.

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Looking Back to Get Where We're Going - The #6 Longest March 2024 Core Update Edition

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 20:00:00 +0000

Recorded on the 36th day of the March 2024 Core Update, the news segment of the show discusses what we know about the Core Update including that Helpful Content has been rolled into the Core Update. That suggests it will be part of Google's normal operations and that recovery can be possible. Now, it's said if you don't understand the past you'll never figure out the future. One of the longest serving SEOs in the business, Terry Van Horne joins hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger to look at the history of Google updates going back to the Florida Update in 2003, trying to glean glimpses of Google's intentions and their outcomes.

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And On and On Again - The #5 Best March Core Update Edition

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 14:10:00 +0000

As Google's March 2024 Core Update marches on towards its eventual end, Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger talk about how a week's worth of rumors, assumptions, and half-baked ideas have led a wide section of the industry to go off half-cocked about the sweeping effects of this update. People are so angry with Google they're deleting and blocking official spokepersons in forums like Reddit while second guessing Google's motives. There have been a few documented recoveries from other parts of this update though there are still no documented recoveries from the Helpful Content Updates run between September and the start of the March 2024 Core Update. In other search news, evidence is starting to build up that Google's SGE, and other A.I. driven search initiatives aren't actually ready for primetime just yet, Twixter restores blue checkmarks to all popular users with or without user permission, teachers are developing stronger tools and protocols to detect student work performed by A.I., Google publishes a tutorial on identifying INP issues, Gemini is coming to Gmail, and much much more.

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Keeping up with F.U.D. - The #4 Greatest March Core Update Ever Edition

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:10:00 +0000

As Google's March 2024 Core Update enters its fourth week, and major league baseball finally returns, hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger cover a lot of conversation, theory, and the rising F.U.D. about the update. There are a lot of rumors, deep anger and resentment, and some genuinely bizarre advice being shared in SEO forums. There is also some genuinely good research and discussion happening in other SEO circles but it takes way longer to come to any conclusions and many in the SEO world appear to be rapidly losing patience. The show also covers announcements and news from OpenAI, TwiXter, TikTok, and tries to figure out what Google is doing in the travel, mapping, and shopping spaces.

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The Fabulous #3 March 2024 Core Update Edition

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:10:01 +0000

As the March 2024 Core Update enters its third week, hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger work to dissect and discuss different aspects of it. The Great Spam Hunt part of the update was said to have ended earlier this week and the fallout has been massive. Along with sites caught in the initial manual penalty sweep, countless niche sites have seen dramatic losses of traffic. Is a recovery possible and if so, what do webmasters need to do to achieve it? We also discuss changes in the management of Google Search following Liz Reed's appointment to Head of Search and speculate on how her tenure might affect the introductions of AI and SGE into Google's core search and other products. As it turns out, Google is introducing a virtual suggestion box asking for feedback on SGE and search in general. We round the show out with as many quick-hit Google stories as we can fit, including how Google recently removed phone numbers from hotel search listings, harmful content warnings on memes in Google images, and Uber's inability to remove its own UberEats buttons from Google Business profiles.

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The Pi Day with Sitebulb Edition

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:18:48 +0000

In the second week of the largest Google Core Update in Google Core Update history Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger are joined by Patrick Hathaway, cofounder and CEO of what is arguably the most cost-effective crawler/auditor tool out there, Sitebulb. During a core update, there's not a lot of work you can do on content that's going to make a difference until the update is over. What you can do is trim the sails and batten the hatches so your websites can best weather a turbulent time. In fact, keeping your website in optimal running shape at any given time is always a good practice and is the basis of technical SEO. Sitebulb packs an outrageous set of tools and metrics for its price-point. Patrick walks us through Sitebulb's function and features and talks about how a major SEO tool adapts to an ever changing environment. Jim and Kristine try not to gush over a toolset that both use daily with Jim noting a massive SEO win for a certain name brand corporation that's very likely very near you right now that he can absolutely attribute to a Sitebulb audit. We also talk a lot about Google, the March 2024 Core Update, Google's expectations, John Mu's robots.txt, and a hell of a lot more on this Pi Day edition of Webcology, Also Known as: The #2 March Core Update Edition.

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The #1 March 2024 Core Update Edition

Thu, 07 Mar 2024 15:55:32 +0000

They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, except for those times when March comes in like a lion and takes out a wide swath of sheep. Then they just say, "whoa!". So Google rode into March like a hungry lion with a staggeringly complicated Core Update, a very serious shellacking of manual penalties, changes to who can monetize content with AdSense, a multi-sweep set of algorithm updates, and changes to guidelines given to search result quality raters. Various Google spokespersons have outlined Google's goals for this update while also trying to explain aspects of the update in their opaque and sometimes uptight Google coded ways. It will take at least four weeks for the March 2024 Core Update to fully play out, during which SEOs and webmasters can expect several sweeps over the course of the next four weeks. Expect a massive house cleaning as Google reacts to a year or more of deep seeded consumer complaints about declining search quality. Google says it intends to eliminate about 40% of spammy content. It remains to be seen if March goes out like a lamb or a lion but one week into the month there's already virtual carnage throughout the Colosseum.

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A Very Long News Break Before the Storm Edition

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:44:42 +0000

Due to a scheduling conflict, this show was recorded a day late but it went nearly an extra hour overtime because there was just so much to talk about. There was a lot of negative news about AI as AI developers find new sources of content to train on and users find new ways to use and abuse new AI tool sets. From AI developing or enhancing video games to the depravities that have horrified a proprieter of an AI powered porn-site to OpenAI musing about putting AI systems into the bodies of humanoid robots, hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about AI's influence and Google in the week leading up to the March 2024 Core Update. A long but often highly charged and interesting edition.

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The Cause of SEO for Paws Edition

Thu, 22 Feb 2024 14:43:14 +0000

Since leaving Kyiv just after the Russian invasion two years ago, Anton Shulke has been raising funds at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/antonshulke to help pets that got displaced, injured, or abandoned during the brutal ongoing war in Ukraine. Anton joins us to talk about the day-long virtual SEO conference, SEO for Paws (https://fajela.com/events/seo-for-paws/) on February 29 at 10:55 am. Check out the line-up! After speaking with Anton, Jim Hedger, and Kristine Schachinger talk through ChatGPT losing its mind on Tuesday, the implications of video-making AI, Google's recent multi-variable structured data advice, and more of Google's issues, and a host of other searchably important things. Take a few minutes to donate to Anton's efforts and register for the February 29 SEO-for-Paws virtual conference as soon as you can.

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The There's No Meat to EEAT on SEO Myths Edition

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:38:27 +0000

It was a busy news week made up mostly of Google trying to disabuse parts of the SEO community from the idea that E-E-A-T is anything more than an ideal. Google came out and said E-E-A-T is absolutely and unequivocally not a ranking factor, a ranking signal, or a ranking system and that E-E-A-T has less to do with how sites rank as much as it does with things Google Search Quality Raters should look for when evaluating the quality of search engine results. And yet, some folks wanna argue about it which makes hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger want to talk about it, at least Jim does. The show also covers Google Gemini which is so new and better it has replaced Bard, changes at Google Search Console, How a Helpful Content problem might not be, and how Google might clarify use of AI to generate on-page content.

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The Tony's Wright Again Episode

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 15:34:41 +0000

Legendary SEO and all around friendly guy Tony Wright joins hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger for a wide open discussion about the future of SEO. Founder of one of the oldest agencies still operating, WrightIMC, Tony has lived through and adapted to sweeping changes in the course of his career. This episode, recorded on February 8, 2024, covers how to roll with change in a time when even Google itself appears to be having trouble adapting. This was a fun, smart conversation.

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The Indexing Issues are an Open Metaphor Edition

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 15:56:23 +0000

Google's reporting major indexing issues and that seemed like the most appropriate metaphor for this week's show. WTF is going on with Google? The SERPs are weird, the future direction of the company is uncertain, it is sending seemingly strange new messages in Search Console, and sometimes its spokespeople say outright contradictory things. To make it more interesting, Google's recent weirdness is only one of many waves in what was an unexpectedly turbulent close to the opening month of 2024. This was an interesting news week and hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger weave several stories together into a fun rolling conversation.

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The Audience is the Key Edition

Thu, 25 Jan 2024 20:19:31 +0000

Tom Rusling from Audience Key drops in to talk about the myriad of ways Audience Key makes content creation and performance tracking easy, at least, that's what he came to talk about. This was a fun interview covering a lot of thoughts about the emerging content economy, how to build tools that meet SEO needs, and how AI is doing all the stuff AI is doing. We also talk about a massive data breach that compromised over 26 billion personal records, yet another congressional look at the behavior of AI and big tech, speedy WordPress plugins, and more SEO news.

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The too big to FAil, too important to flAil edition

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 09:18:14 +0000

Three weeks into the New Year and Google has been mostly quiet, with the exception of the hounded and outraged who lost in the most recent updates which may well have been upgrades. Google has undergone several fundamental changes in the past year, the greatest of which are affected by AI. Today we talk about those changes in Google search itself and in the business of being Google. Is Google getting worse? It depends. On one hand, a recent German study suggests it might be, while on the other anecdotal evidence suggests spammy content are declining and ultralow quality pages are falling from the SERPs. How is the Search Generative Experience affecting searchers and the world's search engine of choice? Again, it depends. Folks love complaining about craptastic Google quality and Bing can only increase its market share by less than 2%, even after introducing ChatGPT's Copilot. If you ever got the feeling explaining SGE to your clients is as absurd as detailing most Seth Rogan Experiences, this is the show for you.

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The Technologies Shape Experience Edition

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 14:45:34 +0000

Another week, another article explaining how SEO has shaped the Web was written by someone who doesn't appear to understand how SEO shaped the Web. The week hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about a piece that appears in The Verge that almost but not quite gets it and then proceeds to share numerous SEO myths and misunderstandings. We also talk about Google's SGE product carousel, more ways to use schema, and new Google changes coming to deal with spam, and hopefully, we dispel a couple of other SEO myths along the way.

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An Expert Experts Panel Edition - Looking into 2024

Thu, 28 Dec 2023 20:21:49 +0000

We round up 2023 and look forward to 2024 with what is arguably the most experienced panel in SEO podcasting. Joining Webcology hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger are Ryan Jones - SVP of SEO Razorfish, Topher Kohan - Director of SEO for CBS Sports Paramount Global, Carolyn Shelby - Principle SEO at YoastSEO and Newfold Digital, Doc Sheldon - CEO of Web Narwhal, Grant Simmons - Director of SEO at Clickfluent, and Steve Wiideman - CEO of Wiideman Consulting. Everyone in the panel has at least a decade and a half in the industry. Collectively the group brings over 150 years of acquired knowledge to a conversation that ranges through the impact of AI on the industry to the many updates Google made in 2023. Catch up, look forward, and welcome to an interesting and probably chaotic future. Stick around for the laughs.

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The SGE Experience Episode with Gavin Klondike

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 22:07:05 +0000

Gavin Klondike joined Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger to talk about Google's intentions with the SGE moving past the end of the year. Gavin helped explain AI and LLMs earlier this year in our ELI5 episode. This is a fun deep dive into how Google might generate and present SGE results and another good explanation of Googlie AI.

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The Finally Getting Over It Edition

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 15:20:10 +0000

Both Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger have coped with the chaos of personal loss in the last month while talking about months of chaos at Google search. Jim talks about the loss of his father-in-law while Kristine copes with having to leave a condo she's loved living in for nearly 20 years. Meanwhile, over at Google, goalposts got moved to define Parasite SEO, some Gemini videos appear to be far out of a credible viewport, Search Engine Land celebrates its 17th birthday, and AI growth accelerates so quickly it's slowing many AIs down.

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The CShels Yoast AI Edition with Carolyn Shelby

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:01:03 +0000

YoastSEO has a holiday present ready for its Pro users, especially those who use WooCommerce. YoastSEO's Principle SEO Carolyn Shelby joins Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger to talk about the new AI feature in this the 24th version of the Yoast SEO tool. Carolyn is one of the longest serving SEOs in the business. Her career, which started in 1995, spans the entire history of digital marketing. She brings nearly three decades of experience to an experience of a lifetime, making what is arguably the most widely used SEO Toolset on the Web. Carolyn has been a friend for most of both Jim and Kristine's careers. She is also a former WebmasterRadio show host. For long time listeners, and for Jim and Kristine, it's a wonderful reunion on the radio with one of the most special people in our business.

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The November 16th is Groundhog Day Edition

Thu, 16 Nov 2023 15:36:12 +0000

Truckin' through Groundhog Day of November 16th and talking Wikimedia too... "Six weeks until Christmas and all through the Web, not a placement was stirring because they were all dead. The dossiers were hung in massive digital files, defining all pages, their friends, and their while. And in Google's great blender, an awful sort just got slewed, making mincemeat of merchants whose lives just got screwed. I sat alone with rank checkers on screen but could only see red where once I saw green..." November 17, 20?? -- We had a show plan until Google did what Google did and so that plan got 302ed. We do have an interview with WikiCommons super-contributor Joe Mabel who spoke at the WikiConference North America 2023 held in Toronto last week, the one that was briefly truncated by a bomb threat but, because Google did what Google tends to do at this time of year, the interview was way too brief. Considering the importance of Wikipedia to the Web and its impact on search over the years, we could have talked with Joe for hours. Unfortunately, Google screwgled those plans by announcing what could be the most sweeping sets of changes to how Google creates, displays, and distributes search results since its first major update, 20 years ago today. We spend the last half of the episode discussing those changes. To Quote spokesperson Danny Sullivan, "Buckle Up!"

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The 3 Pillars of Wisdom over 10,000 Years of Load Time Edition

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 13:13:29 +0000

On the eve of the first-ever brightonSEO San Diego Conference where Kristine Schachinger is going to speak, there was so much in the SEO and web marketing worlds for her and cohost Jim Hedger to talk about. We start with Google's claim that work on Core Web Vitals has saved over 10,000 hours of load time in the two-and-a-half years the set of metrics has existed. That takes us through a slew of Google and SEO news, along with a couple of items related to AI and Twixter before we loop back to the 3 Pillars of Google Search, a serious snippet of wisdom that came out as evidence in the DOJ's anti-trust case against Google. This is a fun and interesting news-related episode covering a lot of ground in an all-too-short hour.

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The We'll Ruin it Again for Fun and Profit Edition

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 19:18:13 +0000

An article in Verve titled, "The people who ruined the Internet", teaches hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger a valuable lesson; if you're really going to really ruin something as big as the Internet, you'll want to include a live alligator for extra emphasis. Jim and Kristine, who both know most of the people quoted in the article personally, are awestruck at how badly off-base a really well-written article about SEO could be. There's a lot to unpack, dissect, reframe, cut into very tiny pieces, and virtually snort off the turntable here but, like all good SEOs, we try.

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The End of October Core News Update Edition

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 20:29:18 +0000

Covering a lot of bases in only an hour, this is a news-heavy episode. Hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger start with a weird and very rare Google search outage and quickly move to news that sweeping regulation of A.I. will be introduced by executive order early next week. While the White House moves to regulate, Reddit might move to ban A.I. from training on Reddit content as negotiations between it and OpenAI appear to be flailing towards failure. Meanwhile, over at Google, SGE is getting supportive links, paid ads are appearing among traditional organic listings, unhelpful signals about helpful content are being shared, and so much more. Tune in for our slightly slanted skew on news SEOs can use.

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The Search is Starting to Look Like Social Edition

Thu, 19 Oct 2023 15:58:44 +0000

As the world turns around in the hardest of ways hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk through several trends in search and social media. An episode punctuated early by the political sides of tech, the conversation moves from TwiXter's often hateful Misinformation Environment to secrets revealed in Google's ongoing anti-trust trials to the conclusion of the October 2023 Core Update. Along the way, we also note Mike King's must-read piece on SGE and retrieval-augmented results generation (SEL, Oct19), and the creeping feeling search may be trying to be a more social environment.

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The Ethical Intelligence Advanced Edition

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 17:49:41 +0000

Earlier in the day, show host Kristine Schachinger sat on a panel about ethics and A.I. with Morgan McGraw from Madrid-based Contextual Advertising Company, Seedtag. Morgan walks us through how Seedtag's Artificial Intelligence, Liz, works through tens or even hundreds of millions of pieces of page content, user behaviors, and site analytics to help their clients reach the most optimal target audience possible. To explain that, Morgan has to explain how Liz and other A.I. works, what it does, and how it makes its choices. Most importantly, Morgan explains some of the why while addressing the ethical choices made making and training A.I.

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The EleventyFifth Google Update Edition

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 19:01:20 +0000

Recorded on host Jim Hedger's 55th birthday, this newsy episode covers a lot of Googly ground. Apparently, there's a lot to update with the September 2023 Helpful Content Update following hot on the heals of the August 2023 Core Update but a little bit before the October 2023 InternatSpam Update which, of course, preceded the October 2023 Broad Core Update. We also talk about the mysterious TwiXter playbook, the obvious TwiXter debt load, and a bit about how Bing Search's A.I. is already eating its own tail. Confused? You probably won't be after this episode of Webcology!

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The Resistance Fuels Innovation Edition

Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:14:21 +0000

In an interesting interview with A.I. researcher and artist Eryk Salvaggio, founder of the Algorithmic Resistance Research Group (ARRG!), hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger discuss generative A.I. and the arts. After Eyrk explains how A.I. image models work to generate images from chaos, the interview explores the immediate effects of A.I. on the art world, how A.I. might shape or augment an artist’s creativity, how it will impact the business models of creativity, and how to protect artists and content creators. Along the way, we examine some of the ethics of using generative A.I. in art and also explore the ethics of creating art designed purposefully to subvert A.I. training models. The continuation of our series on A.I.s impact, one year on, is a fun yet challenging episode.

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The Artful Intelligence in Need of a Voice Edition

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 20:55:36 +0000

A rough-voiced version of Webcology was recorded several days late due to illness. With Kristine Schachinger recovering from a second round of COVID-19 and Jim Hedger getting over a throat infection that temporarily cost him his voice, this is one of those "the show must go on" episodes. We cover a lot of news in this episode from major AI advancements to the outcomes of Google's Helpful Content update. (note, Jim found the document he insisted Kristine send him).

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SEO AI: The Methods, Tools, & Tactics Edition

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 16:06:28 +0000

In the second episode of a multi-part series on the impacts of A.I. on search engines and SEO, hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk with Mark Traphagen, Vice President of Product Marketing & Training for seoClarity, an enterprise SEO platform. Mark talks about the ethical, technical, and business challenges of adding and altering A.I. in popular software products. -- Next, we're joined by Glasgow-based SEO Craig Campbell who talks about how he uses A.I. in some instances but how he won't in others. Craig talks about the current limitations of A.I. in his SEO practice and how Google is looking at A.I.. Always warm and thoughtful, Craig gave us an open and highly interesting interview.

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LLMs: The Expl-A.I.-n It Like I'm 5 Edition

Thu, 07 Sep 2023 18:52:40 +0000

We are in a time of sweeping change driven by A.I. yet there remains a great deal of confusion about how Large Language Models work and how A.I. content is actually generated. Over the coming weeks, we hope to help change that. In the ten months since the public introduction of ChatGPT, we've used a lot of airtime talking about AI and the Large Language Models behind it. We've talked about extraordinary uses of A.I. and very reasonable fears about how A.I. is going to be used. Like many others in the search industry, show hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger have a better-than-average understanding of A.I. but, they also understand that relative to our guests they're merely well-informed laypersons. - LLM researcher Gavin Klondike joins us in this first of a several-week series to explain the basic concepts behind LLMs. Gavin helped organize the A.I. Village at this year's DEFCON which is where Kristine met him. In this episode, Gavin breaks down how LLMs are built and taught to predict the most likely syntax with which to construct a response to a prompt. He explains many of the processes LLMs use to generate responses and provides what is perhaps the very best analogy explaining how A.I. simply can never understand the topic at hand, even if it can help you understand that topic better. - This was a fascinating, frightening, enlightening, and highly entertaining interview that will absolutely help you understand the technology that's rapidly altering the ecology of the Web.

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The Circle of Search at the End of Summer Edition

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 13:10:05 +0000

We started this week with the news that Google's original search spokesperson, Matt Cutts, and his wife Lindsay, are the parents of twins! That leads us to talk about Twitter and the "What Could Go Wrong?", attitude that wants to convert X into everything or distill the workings of the Web into X. From there, we have a fairly serious talk about Google's Search Generative Experience (SGE), which will be newly improved with links. Should companies be open to allowing their content to be used to train AI and LLMs? Several of the top 1000 websites think not so we talk about the efficacy of blocking your content from LLMs. We round out the show with an index full of Google organic search news and SEO opinions and would like to giggle while reminding link-spammers that emailing Danny Sullivan will not likely produce a beneficial outcome.

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The August 2023 No Worries Edition

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 15:00:17 +0000

Google's August 2023 Core Update began running this week which makes this the August 2023 No Worries edition. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger explain what a Core Update is, how long they generally take, and how it's simply not worth worrying about the Core Update until the Core Update does its thing because we don't really know what the update is trying to accomplish until Google tells us or until it's done. Luckily, it was a mega-silly news week so there was a lot to talk about, starting with the ongoing weirdness that is Twitter which led to the launch of Meta's Threads on desktop which led to a lot of Google SEO news. This was a fun show in a worrying week where the overall mantra should be, "It's Only a Core Update, No Need to Worry."

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The Getting Closer to 0_o Edition

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 11:12:45 +0000

This episode starts with the realization that we're about to mark the 20th anniversary of Google's infamous November 2003 Florida Update. That update was a day the search universe changed, much like the universe is rapidly shifting due to more recent changes introduced in a much more recent November. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger use the history of organic search and events from the past week as a platform to look at the sweeping changes brought by the introduction of AI elements in search. Along the way, we help with some SEO myth-busting, joke about how to ultimately block Google and all other bots, talk about the growth, intention, and implications of various AIs at various search engines, and rage-joke about the trajectories of Twitter-X. This is a passionate, funny, and quick-paced conversation that plays with the borders of technology, user intent, and policy. - A special thanks to our sponsor, AudienceKey!

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The No Need to Cull Edition

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 14:12:31 +0000

Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger run through the week's search-related news items but focus on trying to explain, debunk, and find use cases for the new SEO fad of content-culling. Recently Google reps weighed in on CNET's decision to remove a large bulk of content from the earliest days of the Internet. This prompted a good debate in the SEO community and a good conversation between hosts Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger on the value of culling content and the limited number of scenarios in which it might be a useful tactic. The question of what to do with ancient content is a question of what the Web is supposed to be to different users. For some, the Web is the world's largest archive of everything while to others the Web is an active place of commerce and communication and for some, it's just a place to screw around and have lolz. Speaking of, we also talk about the Zuck vs. Musk fight, how to block some AIs using robots.txt, the difference between crawl and render, and a whole lot more...

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BluShark Week with Special Guest Seth Price

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 10:31:41 +0000

It’s BluShark Week here on Webcology as this week we’re happy to welcome guest Seth Price, founder and CEO of local-legal focused SEO firm, BluShark Digital. According to the AboutUs page on their website, “BluShark Digital uses the same cutting-edge marketing techniques (high-quality technical optimization, sophisticated content, authoritative link-building, and local optimization) that Seth used to grow his own business and has established itself as a best in class digital agency focusing on the legal sector.”

That business that Seth grew, by the way, is a multi-officed law firm. Seth is also the founding partner of Price Benowitz Accident Injury Lawyers, LLP, a law firm with numerous offices around the Washington DC, Arlington, and Baltimore region. Price Benowitz started with two attorneys and now employs over 40 people.

Jim and Kristine spend a fast-paced and truly fun hour talking with Seth about local search, how his digital marketing experience helps better build his legal business, and how building his legal business literally built BluShark, his digital marketing business. With a wealth of experience to share from both businesses, Seth graced us with an insightful and information-packed conversation. If you're into local search, you want to hear this episode.

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The Now X Marks the Schlock Edition

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 13:42:08 +0000

As the Actor's and Writer's strike continues, Netflix doubles down on its strong A.I. position by advertising a $900K / year A.I. Product Manager position. Even with the real-to-life drama of the writer and actor's strike, the weirdest news of the week goes to the social network formerly known as Twitter. Rebranded "X" on what appears to be a lifelong whim, the network Musk bought continues to sink into a swamp of its own making. We also get to discuss a lot of Google stuff including programmatic spam, reviews by cohorts of interest, and much, much more. Tune in to discover why X now marks the schlock.

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As AI Goes through Hollywood...

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 13:33:02 +0000

The Writers and Actors strike provides a stark but pretty accurate warning for everyone else about how AI will be used to displace workers and degrade opportunities. Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger start a conversation about AI's effect on culture discussing how script writers are being replaced by AI and how actors and voice actors are being paid for single performances that get digitized and used as avatars for those actors in future products. From there we look at different AI tools, apps, models, and other AI-enhanced ideas such as Google's news-story writing AI model, the launch of AI models from Meta, Apple, and Anthropic, the wild inaccuracies that attracted the attention of the FTC, and the continued insertion of AI into everything. We also got to talk about Google updates, Google indexing issues, the massive loss of links reported in the Search Console, and how a perfect UX is incredibly important but still not a replacement for helpful content. This show goes pretty much everywhere it can in the hour it had to get there.

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Geeking out with Julia Logan (aka: IrishWonder)

Thu, 13 Jul 2023 13:38:31 +0000

Kristine Schachinger is on the road this week speaking at the iGB Live Amsterdam conference so we had a special guest live from Amsterdam NL, Julia Logan, perhaps better known in SEO circles as Irish Wonder. Julia is a long-time web consultant who has practiced SEO since 2000. In 2020 she founded a boutique agency, Zangoose Digital. Jim, Kristine, and Julia have a wide-ranging conversation that just jumps in at one of Julie's many specialties, mainstream media's enormous effect on the online gaming space, which was the topic of her session at IGBLive. We also talked about the history of SEO, work in the DEV trenches, the effects of AI on the gaming industry and content creation, and the long-term implications for search marketing. Ultimately, this was a fun high-level conversation between three long-term web marketers who find the job and each other fascinating. We eventually got around to covering the week's SEO news.

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Twitter Hanging by Threads After a Self-Inflicted Winging

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 09:55:01 +0000

Twitter had another very bad week after it deGoogled itself in a badly thought through response to the scrapers and bots attracted to the network. Last Friday, Elon Musk announced he was limiting the number of Tweets users could see in a day in response to scrapping activity and bots on the network. Those limits had numerous effects, including having nearly half of Twitter content in Google's index removed. Today the world woke to the first day of Threads, the Twitter-like messaging platform started by Meta and based on its Instagram platform. While Twitter's data is slowly returning to Google's index, it's a little less likely unhappy users will return to Twitter. Kristine Shachinger and Jim Hedger talk about the first day of Threads and the threat Threads might pose to Twitter.

We also talk about OpenAI's quest to reign in AI, Canada's reaction to Google and Meta removing news coverage for Canadian users, Google and file structure, and a lot more. Tune in for an interesting and weirdly silly episode.

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Analyticgedon: the Final Hours of UA3

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 13:38:13 +0000

1 day, 13 hours, 59 minutes: That's the time left at the time of recording before Google pulls the data plug on Universal Analytics 3, replacing it with the much unloved and misunderstood Google Analytics 4. Many SEOs and other digital marketers, all of whom have been warned for the last 18 months are freaking out having hoped Google wasn't actually going to go through with the switch. Surprise, they will in approximately 1 day, 13 hours, and 58 from the time this sentence was spoken.

Joining Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger on Webcology today is Alan K'necht, owner of K'nechtology and one of the search marketing industry's expert's experts on analytics. Alan walks us through the changes between UA3 and GA4, pointing out similarities and differences search marketers should look for. This was a wildly interesting episode hosted the day before a significant milestone day in search history, the day Universal Analytics and the way it gathered user information, is being put out to pasture and replaced by something the sector dislikes but; as Alan points out, maybe you'll learn to like it.

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It's a Regudiculous World (but nothing a good billionaire cage match can't fix)

Thu, 22 Jun 2023 21:07:28 +0000

This was a weird week punctuated by the stupefyingly terrible news of the Titan submarine disaster, (which was confirmed by the US Coast Guard in the middle of the show recording), and the shockingly hilarious news of a potential cage match between tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. The early money is on Zuckerberg who is a trained MMA fighter and twelve years younger than the 51-year-old Musk. This is surprisingly real.

Other real things: Early bird tickets are still available for November's BrightonSEO USA in San Diego but the free ticket lottery opens on Monday. Google has introduced a new Core Web Vital, INP. Garry from Google goes over how ChatGPT and other LLMs are not reliable tools to diagnose SEO issues, the European Union is mandating Google break up its advertising business, Microsoft is developing an even more powerful AI which it code-named Orca, and USAToday is suing Google for decreasing ad revenues and monopolistic practices. Did we mention the high potentiality of the world's first and likely only billionaire cage match? It was a weird week.

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The A.I. Plagiarengine Edition

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:40:00 +0000

"Whispers from within, Nature's laughter fills the air, Gentle cheeks release.", ChatGPT for Chrome, 2023

It's been another week of extraordinary A.I. developments with plenty of examples of A.I. screw-ups, gripes, and fears as we surge forward figuring out how to best use and abuse the powers of A.I... Kristine Schachinger and Jim Hedger look at Chatbots in Search and talk about a few weeks of watching Google's Search Generative Experience roll out. One critic called Google SGE a plagiarism engine and another critique noted the lack of passion that goes into generating haiku poems about farts so we asked ChatGPT to generate a haiku about farts and it did create an original haiku about farts so ChatGPT winds that around.

We also talk about the loss of navigation in the final weeks of Universal Analytics, how Google might be forced to break itself up to do business in the European Union, how a blackhat super scrape netted $800K, and more...

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Today's Episode Only Talks About AI Half the Time

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:38:05 +0000

The impacts of artificial intelligence are everywhere and we spend a lot of time talking about those impacts but we also got to talk about some regular Googley stuff too. Jim Hedger and Kristine Schackinger did start off on a high note, noting the reports of the death of a US Air Force member testing an AI-operated drone were greatly and completely exaggerated as it was only a simulation. Paraphrasing the words of the commanding officer, "... it was just a simulation. Only a madman would do that for real." Fun times!

We also talked a bit more about Sam Altman's fears of "... something really bad happening", but also talked about how Google is adding Implicit Code Execution to Bard and giving it the ability to export data to Google Sheets. Interesting times?

Best of all, we got to talk about Google glitches, the delicate art of SERP Composition, and the expansive myth of Index Bloat, and we try to answer the age-old question, "Can security headers help with rankings?" Bizarre times indeed...

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BrightonSEO USA

Thu, 25 May 2023 12:45:00 +0000

Sometime last yesterday, word went out on Twitter and LinkedIn that one of the largest SEO conference in the world was coming to North America. Conference founder Kelvin Newman tweeted and posted his team was bringing the show over here in 2023 with a date and time to be announced in the coming weeks. We asked Kelvin to come on Webcology to talk about the experience and, what we expected to be a quick ten-minute promotion turned into a twenty-five-minute conversation about his experience organizing shows, how to pitch your ideas, the free ticket lottery system, and a host of other stuff.

We also walk through the enormous number of AI and SEO-related stories from the world of search including,

New AI-driven third-party plug-ins for Expedia, Kayak, Instacart, and others (https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-openai-web-browsing-plug-change-how-we-use-internet-2023-5)
22 best ChatGPT Chrome Extensions to try (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/chatgpt-chrome-extensions/485594/)
Bing named the search engine of record for ChatGPT (https://www.seroundtable.com/bing-search-search-engine-chatgpt-35437.html)
The opening of the first trial group in Google's new AI-driven Search Generative Experience (https://searchengineland.com/google-opens-access-to-search-generative-experience-today-427572)
Google's not-so-new Topical Authority Ranking (https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-news-topic-authority-ranking-system-35438.html)
and more...

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The Industry's First AI-supported SEO Auditing tool

Thu, 18 May 2023 17:28:52 +0000

In what is possibly one of the most interesting and entertaining interviews we've recorded in a while, Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk with SEO legend Martin MacDonald about the development and release of the industry's first AI-supported SEO Auditing tool, Serpere.AI - https://serpere.ai/.

Martin has been a practicing SEO since the dawn of the commercial Internet and has worked with some of the largest websites in the commercial sphere, including TicketMaster, Expedia, and Orbitz. Founder of MOGmedia, Martin has shared his findings and SEO data with the SEO community as a trusted source for over a decade.

Today we talk about AI's advancements in the tech sector, discuss the intricacies of conducting a large-scale website audit, and cover how AI has made Serpere much faster and more accurate and how its use of AI radically simplifies the reporting and explanation process.

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Google(AI) IO

Thu, 11 May 2023 13:20:14 +0000

Google announced major changes to search results as artificial intelligence-assisted search becomes part of Google's information universal ecosystem (*except for Canadians, Germans, and a small gaggle of other unfortunates whose governments find themselves arguing with Google)

In this show, Jim Hedger and Kristine Shachinger talk about the biggest announcements from Google IO and how coming changes will affect the business and practice of SEO. We discuss Google Perspectives, About This Image, Google Maps Immersive, Google Helpful, and a host of other Google search products and services that are or are soon to be directly influenced by AI-driven results sets. We also cover changes to Google's Core Web Vitals, and how the statement, "What does this bring to the existing information table?" is one of the best questions to ask when considering the true value of content.

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So Sayeth the Godfather

Thu, 04 May 2023 11:06:38 +0000

Geoffery Hinton is widely considered the Godfather of Artificial Intelligence. His research into human brain function in the late 1980s and early 90s at the University of Toronto prompted him and a team of early neural researchers to start to conceive of a digital brain that could learn. His work is considered the foundation of modern machine learning and large language models. He recently stepped down from his position as head of AI research at Google's parent company Alphabet so he could raise awareness of a terrible thing he can't stop thinking about. Ten months ago, an AI model Hinton was working with deciphered and explained the humor behind a joke. It wasn't necessarily a great joke but it was a series of complexities that built upon themselves to end in a twist requiring a leap of thought to understand. That the AI model was able to easily make the leap and understand the humor that made the joke funny astounded and terrified him. That was the moment he reckoned the rapidity of advancement since the beginning of his career in the late 1980s. What he thought would be happening several decades from now is happening today, faster and far fuller than he and other pioneers of AI anticipated. Last week, Hinton suggested he regretted much of his career. In this episode, Jim Hedger and Kristine Shachinger talk about Hinton's worries through a week's worth of AI news. We also talk about Hinton's extraordinary career and think about the advancements that can be made because of his work. We also talk about E-E-A-T, the coming of Google Analytics 4, Google's advice on canonicals for publishers, and Google's disavowal of disavows. We're still trying to get an interview with Professor Hinton.

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An Almost AI free show!

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 11:19:20 +0000

There was a lot of Google news to cover this week in a short break from our usual breathless coverage of the AI revolution. This week hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger discuss a number of Google and social media stories, along with thanking Search Engine Journal for including Webcology in the Top SEO Podcasts for 2023. This week we covered

the growth of Spoutable
Elon's Secret faux-minor Twitter profile
Google Product Updates - GA4 is coming
Google April 2023 Reviews Update done rolling out
Google rewriting page titles in SERPs (again)
and the bipartisan plan to limit social media access to ages 13 and over

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Webcology - April 20, 2023

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 18:09:58 +0000

Another AI-focused show. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk about the introduction of Auto-GPT, OpenAI’s newest product that can instruct itself. Jim, who has been a strong supporter of incorporating AI into our work process and tools admits to being a bit queasy at the prospect of a self-prompting AI. We also cover the development of Project Maji and Google’s new Search Engine, the introduction of a new Google web crawler, the removal of Page Experience from the Search Console, the sudden death of Buzzfeed News, and more…

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Webcology - April 13, 2023

Thu, 13 Apr 2023 18:03:13 +0000

A news coverage show that tried to focus on organic search with a lot of changes to report at Google. The biggest story this week has been the rollout of Google’s new Review Update expanding to cover reviews about products, services, and things. Hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger also talk about how a page or site’s quality can degrade over time, how schema triggers different types of SERPs, how the March 2023 Core Update might have affected local search, using ChatGPT for research, and the ongoing saga of strange going’s on at the social network formerly known as Twitter.

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The AI, AI, Oh Oh Edition

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 16:21:08 +0000

Like Elvis in a Mojo Nixon song, AI is everywhere man. This week hosts Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talk through the confusing ways the SEO and tech industries are taking to AI. From hallucinated Guardian stories to a treasure trove of industrial espionage opportunities, this week

offered us a lot of lessons about being careful around AI.

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The – Your SVB is Showing Edition

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 14:48:43 +0000

Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger talked about a number of stories this week focusing on the implications of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, the suddenly introduced March 2023 Google Core Update, the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT4, and the educational game SEOpoly.

There was no end of big and important things to talk about this week, we wanted to make time for Jef Van Gool, innovator of SEOpoly, a twist on the common board game but where you acquire knowledge and SEO skills rather than properties as you move up the rankings to the top spots. It’s a cool concept with a prototype that worked well at last year’s BrightonSEO.

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SEOClarity’s Very Big Release Week

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 11:56:37 +0000

Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger host an informative and very fun show today with guests, Mitul

Ghandi co-founder and chief architect and Mark Traphagen, VP of Product Marketing and Training from

the enterprise-SEO super-system SEOClarity (https://seoclarity.net). Mitul and Mark join Jim and Kristine

to talk about the multi-feature rollouts SEOClarity introduced during its Release Week. SEOClarity is all

about merging big data with understandable and actionable dashboards, insights, and suggestions.

When Mitul and Mark come on the show, we get to talk about grand-scale SEO wisdom gained from

studying billions of data sets gathered over several years.

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Facebook’s New Rules – Explain rather than Punish

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 23:29:44 +0000

Facebook will now remove a post and give up to seven explanations before suspending or banning users. The new policy is a result of analysis and feedback from Meta’s Independent Oversight Board. More severe violations still could mean immediate penalties like posting bans and/or account removal.

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/02/meta-is-improving-facebooks-penalty-system/

First up Micha Fisher and Masatake Wasa, two mods of the No Dumb Questions SEO group on Facebook joined us to talk about a mass ban event. Last week Micha and Masa and all other mods at No Dumb Questions woke to find their Facebook and Instagram profiles disabled without cause or reason and with little to no help from Facebook. We start with their story.

Later in the show, Kristine and Jim are joined by Audience Key founder and Webcology sponsor Tom Rusling as we talk about Pubcon, AI, and the Audience Key content strategy, creation, and deployment tool. (https://audiencekey.com/)

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Pubcon and Then Some

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 11:41:47 +0000

This was a technical heavy show focusing on talking announcements from Pubcon, Google’s

Feb2023 Product Reviews Update, how Bing uses AI content, changes to credentials at Search Console,

Russian propagandists exploiting Twitter verification, and the cases in front of the US Supreme Court

that might threaten Section 260.

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Webcology News And Review

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 18:21:03 +0000

This was a news and review show, wrapping up a number of weeks of talking about AI's effects on the search and on digital marketing. Going into the show hosts Jim Hedger of Digital Always Media and Kristine Schachinger of Sites Without Walls are expected to cover a lot of Google news and announcements. Almost predictively, AI managed to dominate a lot of the conversation despite our best intentions but when Microsoft's version of ChatGPT goes off on an NYTimes reporter trying to convince him to leave his partner and seek love with it, we sort of have to talk about it. Luckily, we also found time to talk about Google's new directives on Links, give an update on Google's Mobile First initiative, discuss Microsoft's new Terms of Service, make fun of Elon as the new King of Muskego, talk about better Lighthouse data, and happily lament the degradation and death of Internet Explorer. Gumbo episodes are lots of fun.

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In Which We Get Two Brilliant Tech Execs to Talk About AI

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 18:26:46 +0000

Earlier this week, Microsoft and Google both announced they’re introducing different types of AI into search and related products with staged press events. Both of today’s guests have spent a lot of time thinking about and working with machine learning and AI in their digital marketing careers. Duane Forrester thinks about emerging technologies from the point of view of a leading business tool maker while Ryan Jones is a vice president of one of the oldest digital marketing agencies in the world.

Duane and Ryan join Jim Hedger and Kristine Schachinger for an hour-long wide ranging conversation about Google and Microsoft’s AI announcements and the implications for the web and for the digital marketing communities.

Duane Forrester is the Vice President of Industry Insights at Yext, the leading business-fact management tool where he leads industry outreach, evangelism, and company authorship. In his career, Duane ran the WebmasterTools program at Microsoft and Bing. Before that, he ran the SEO program at MSN. After leaving the concrete comforts of Microsoft, Duane ran operations for Bruce Clay’s company. He moved to Yext about five, maybe six years ago. In between all that, Duane authored two books, “How To Make Money With Your Blog” and “Turn Clicks Into Customers”, both published by McGraw-Hill. He also taught himself how to make custom electric guitars in his garage when he isn’t tenting it up somewhere miles away from civilization in his ample free time. – Duane Forrester, welcome back to Webcology

A web-dev turned SEO, Ryan Jones is Sr.Vice President, SEO at Razorfish, one of the oldest web marketing agencies on the web. Based in Detroit, Ryan has been an SEO since before Google became a publicly traded company (does today’s Alphabet price give you a sense of nostalgia?) You’ve read Ryan’s work as he’s a regular contributor to most if not all industry publications. Publisher of WTFSEO, Ryan still makes his own websites and tools. He was one of the main crew that dissected Yandex a few weeks back. When he’s not putting some keyboard to good use, Ryan hunts and plays hockey, softball, and golf. If you get the chance, look for him at an industry conference somewhere near you. Ryan Jones, welcome to Webcology.

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The "To Yandex and Beyond" Edition

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 17:24:39 +0000

We had a truly interesting show following last week's Yandex data leak. Mike King, CEO of iPullRank sits in as a guest for the full hour. This is the first week Kristine Schachinger from Sites Without Walls in Las Vegas has sat in the official co-host's seat. Welcome home, Kristine!

This is the second week in a row I was able to write the intro to a guest while listening to their music on Spotify. Icon the Mic King is better known in the SEO world than Michael Icon King, Mike to everyone around him. He’s the founder and CEO of iPullRank, an NYC-based SEO and digital marketing agency. Mike is also a talented musician, a highly accomplished web dev with a quarter century of experience, and the producer of the world’s first short film about SEO, RunTime, the 3-Ring Circus of Technical SEO (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbekzAo4Clk)

Now, you folks might have heard about the Yandex leak. Late last week rumors of a treasure trove started flowing around SEO circles. Someone had, shall we say, made Yandex’s information widely accessible and available. All of it. In what has been called the biggest data leak since AOL spilled its user data all over the web in 2006, the kernel, code, weights, and variables of the Yandex ranking algorithm got studied and, in large parts, decoded over the weekend.

Now, that AOL dump was a watershed moment in search. It literally lead to massive reforms in how information was kept as it proved, among other things, you could tie an individual to a search string.

The Yandex leak is the first time a major modern search engine has been torn apart and, among his other accomplishments, our guest was one of the first SEOs to dig deeply into how the world’s fourth largest search engine works

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The End is the Beginning is the End

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 12:32:29 +0000

This was Dave’s last show as cohost and it was a special one. Over the past few weeks, we have been witnessing and in many cases, participating in the greatest transformation of the digital age. The AI revolution is in full swing and Dave is an emerging expert in the fields of AI and machine learning relating to the search.

We have also seen significant changes in how Google wants to look at content. Lily Ray, Senior Director of SEO and Head of Organic research at Amsive Digital joins us for a full hour-long conversation about E-E-A-T, how AI is affecting content creation, Google’s wants and expectations, and a lot more.

As promised in the opening introduction, this is one of the more interesting and emotional episodes in the show’s 17-year history.

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Inlinks CEO Dixon Jones

Thu, 12 Jan 2023 15:39:07 +0000

Today we spoke with the Founder of Inlinks and one of the truly great innovators in the SEO world, Dixon Jones. Dixon has made or been at the C-Level of two of the most important SEO tools, Majestic and Inlinks. Dixon was Marketing Director at Majestic from 2009 to 2018, leaving to help found InLinks. Based in the UK, his team at Majestic won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for characterizing the Internet in a way people would understand it, humanizing the Internet if you will. To do this, Majestic created a model of the Internet that was printed on the International Space Station.

The interview moves through the history of SEO and looks to the future as Dixon is one of the industry's expert thinkers on machine-assisted learning. Like most of us, he is keenly interested in artificial intelligence. This was one of our more fun interviews in the seventeen-year history of Webcology.

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A Webcology New Year

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 12:00:56 +0000

2023 is going to be a year of extraordinary change. The last three years feel like a coiled spring with a build-up of so much potential energy prepared to become kinetic it will feel like the advent of mass-computing all over again. This might be particularly jarring for some and present ranges of opportunities previously unknown for others. What’s happening right now is the predecessor of what might be the last human-organized information environment in our species’ somewhat short history.

Change happens and change is good. The advancements made in AI, and in particular with OpenAI’s ChatGPT have given innovative people more tools than we’ve ever dreamed possible. That some of those tools are sort of like, blunt objects isn’t as relevant as the rapidity of their evolution and the dozens of things good SEOs are already doing with them. Check out a number of recent videos at YouTube by Matt Diggity for true innovative brilliance.

You know that meme about how you and your pre-teen buddies are about to go bike riding as a gang for the very last time and none of you are aware that this is it? I think we might have seen the last year we could hold on to a concept of what was “normal” and we didn’t know it. Things are going to move much faster from here. It might be good, it might be bad, it might just be opportunities wrapped in new sets of bytes, and it should inspire you to do great things along with scaring the living bejeezus out of you.

The weirdest thing about great change is it’s often like watching a child grow up. You don’t really notice the inches until a foot of them has suddenly happened. And then suddenly, when the thing that’s going to happen happens, it tends to happen quite quickly. Happy New Year. Be ready for virtually anything.

In the show, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discussed a range of changes in the SEO industry moving into 2023 including,

Bing and ChatGPT

https://searchengineland.com/microsoft-to-add-chatgpt-features-to-bing-search-390936

ChatGPT in general
Recent movement against chatGPT in academia and creative circles
Twitter hasn’t paid its rent
Roger Montti’s article asking if the research paper covers the Helpful Algorithm

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/helpful-content-algorithm/475381/

Are Most SEO Practices of Low Quality? Google seems to think so.

"Documents that attempt to perform SEO tend to be flagged as very low quality. This is intuitive since these texts tend to simply string a series of keywords together and are therefore incoherent. Furthermore, we found a moderate number of product pages and professional profiles that also attempt to perform some form of SEO. We observed that media-centric domains, such as image hosting domains, often contain incomprehensible embedded text, possibly for SEO."

John Mueller quote on Good SEO
"I think one of the challenges is that "good SEO" is essentially invisible: it's a well-structured site, it has good content, people like it -- those are not attributes associated with SEO by the bigger web."

SEO Skills needed in 2023? Curiosity and Persistence

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-on-seo-skills-for-2023-curiosity-persistence-34671.html

Google drops 110 character limit on headlines in structured data for articles

https://searchengineland.com/google-drops-the-character-limit-for-headlines-in-article-structured-data-390937

YouTube predicts what will go viral in 2023

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-predicts-what-will-go-viral-in-2023/475545/

(AI, and good-works stuff.ie: MrBeast)

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A Webcology Christmas Carol

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 13:34:46 +0000

Twas two weeks before Christmas

and across the wide web

SEOs were hitting

their desks with their heads

Google had come to update itself

Guaranteeing no downtime

For us little elves

Along with a number of other Googley things, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies talk about getting Scroogled again this year.

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Meta Layoffs And Twitter Weirdness

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 21:41:54 +0000

A most excellent news round-up day with Jim Hedger and Dave Davies rolling through several major stories that affect the search industry this week. The biggest story in tech is the massive fallout from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. It feels like the social media universe is reordering itself as Twitter and Facebook (Meta) face the biggest challenges in their histories.

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The Return Of Conferences

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 14:03:27 +0000

Today on Webcology Kristine Schachinger from Sites without Walls cohosts with Jim Hedger from Digital Always Media. They talk about The return of conferences and the State of Search Conference – last week in Dallas TX. They also dive into Barbados SEO – two weeks from now, as well as The 2022 Social Media Big Tech implosion AND MORE!

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The Accidental SEO Manager – Book 1, Tapping Organic Leads for Profit

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 13:05:00 +0000

Ash is currently the in-house enterprise and multi-national SEO manager at carsales.com.au/ Carsales.com.au, by the way, has a massive global footprint making Ash responsible for overseeing car sales sites around the world as well as Australia.

He’s worked with Suncorp, Australian National Bank, Optus (2^nd largest wireless carrier in AUS), Sensis – Aussie mega info corp, and several other corporate SEO jobs. For years he was a regular columnist at APC Magazine (Aus. Personal Computer days?) He’s also regarded as one of Australia’s top search and digital marketing consultants. A veteran of the Royal Australian Air Force and one of the SEO originals, Ash Nallawalla, welcome to Webcoloy...

SEOs, buy this book for the poor soul who manages your efforts. Your work life will improve dramatically.

https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-SEO-Manager-Managing-Agencies-ebook/dp/B0B7FW6NV3/

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Google’s Most Recent September Core Update And More

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 19:41:48 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies have a fun rambling trip through Google’s most recent September Core Update and the newest Products Review Update, both of which stopped rolling out on September 26. Explaining how Google is merging its newly gained powers of perception with its foundation in link references, Jim and Dave explore the history and implications of Google's algorithm and core updates over the years.

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Helpful Not Huge: The Google Algorithm Update

Fri, 09 Sep 2022 16:19:48 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies cover a lot of ground today with a long talk about the Google Helpful Algorithm Update as its rollout appears to be winding down. While it’s too early to tell exactly how Helpful is going to fall out and its effects could take months to sprawl across the web, the update is having a substantial effect on sites that were actually affected.

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The Question Of The Future Of And Ideas About Art

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 16:23:34 +0000

I don’t know a lot about art... Actually, that’s not true. I know a hell of a lot about art, including what I do and don’t like.

Now, I don’t know a lot about philosophy... Actually, that’s not true. I also know a hell of a lot about philosophy. Life’s weird that way.

Weirder still is the decision of the Colorado State Fair to award the first place finish in the Digital Arts category to Jason Allen for his Ai-Generated work, “Theatre D’opera Spatial”. Now, to be fair to the Fair, it (“Theatre D’opera Spatial”) is a very fetching painting mixing the television and film genres by combining the transformative properties of a friggen Stargate with the tragic and somehow erotic and stately qualities of the Royal Court of Padme Amidala.

To be sort of unfair to everyone else in the competition, the painting, like all digital arts, is more of a rendering and it was done entirely by a computer. It should be noted that Mr. Allen, who is the CEO of Denver-based video game company, Incarnate Games, has been 100% upfront about who he is and how the work was created. He did not grant himself the prize. He has been bemused by people’s reactions given he says he spent hundreds of hours experimenting with the commands given to the AI before settling on what he felt were the top3 images, one of which was Theatre D’Opera...

Eventually, there will be a category for AI-created art in most competitions but it does raise the question of the future of and ideas about art. Welcome to Webcology. We’re not sure how friendly the future will be but it continues to promise to be interesting.

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Helpful or not, here it comes

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 14:41:48 +0000

Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:

· Name: Google helpful content update

· Launch Date: It began to rollout on August 25th

· Rollout: It will take about two weeks to fully roll out

· Targets: It looks at content that was created to rank well in search over help humans

· Search Only: This currently only impacts Google Search, not Google Discover or other Google surfaces. But Google may expand this to Discover and more in the future.

· Penalty: Google did not mention penalty but this update does seem to feel like a penalty for sites that will be hit by it

· Sitewide: This is a sitewide algorithm, so the whole site will be impacted by this update

· Not a core update: Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.

· English Language but will expand: This is only looking at English-language content globally now but likely will expand to other languages.

· Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update but Google did tell me it would be "meaningful." Also, Google said this will be felt more for online-educational materials, entertainment, shopping, and tech-related content.

· Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google's advice below

· Refreshes: Google updates the scores constantly here but there is a timeout period, and a validation period and it can take several months to recover from this update.

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The One Tag To Rule Them All And In Data Studio Bind Them Edition

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 12:58:08 +0000

A lot of search news this week and with Dave on the road in meetings Kristine Shachinger from Sites Without Walls in Las Vegas sat in with Jim to cover it. We started talking about Google's well-named new multi-analytic tag, The Google Tag, and how to properly apply it.

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It's Reporting Season And There's Fallout On The Floor

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 21:28:58 +0000

It's reporting season and there's fallout on the floor. Shopify lays off 10% of the workforce on bad Ecomm bets while Meta(Facebook) posts its first quarterly loss in the company's history...

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Google Search Console Clicks Go to Hidden Terms Says New Study

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 05:30:00 +0000

Most SEOs consider Google Search Console (GSC) their source of truth and trust the data to be accurate. What if I told you that GSC doesn’t tell you all of the keywords you’re getting traffic from? In fact, the tool doesn’t show a term for nearly half the clicks.

These instances of hidden terms account for 46.08% of all clicks in our study. The study includes one month of data across 146,741 websites and nearly 9 billion total clicks.

Google Updates Help Docs in wake of Stox’s Study.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-anonymizes-tons-of-queries-33735.html

GA4 supports Urchin Tracking Parameters (UTM) UTM Term, UTM Content, Conversion and Bounce Rate metrics

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-4-gains-utm-term-utm-content-conversion-bounce-rate-33744.html

Google My Business App has ceased functioning

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-my-business-app-no-longer-available-33743.html

Google Maps App suggested as way to be able to message customer

There is no such thing as a ratio of nofollow to follow links in Google Rankings.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ratio-of-follow-to-nofollow-links-33711.html

Is the type of CMS used to build a site a ranking factor?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/does-the-cms-matter-for-search-rankings/457580/

Massive set of updates and bug fixes released with WordPress 6.0.1

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-6-0-1-maintenance-update-released-with-multiple-bug-fixes/457471/#close

Google Data Studio and how to use it

https://searchengineland.com/google-data-studio-258871

If you are interested in sponsoring Webcology please email brasco@wmr.fm

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Search Result Pages Relatively Similar to No to Low Effort Category Pages

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 03:03:00 +0000

John Mueller Says Search Result pages are relatively similar to no to low effort category pages.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-query-pages-equivalent-to-low-effort-category-pages-33699.html

FCC does not have the authority to force Apple or Google to remove TikTok from their stores however the US government continues to warn against it after US data was accessed by ByteDance Engineers from within China. FCC can fine TikTok and even force reforms on the company as reported in Axios earlier today

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/07/congress-tiktok-china-privacy-data

Google Search Console Insights now supports GA4 (only)

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-insights-google-analytics-4-33706.html

From the what could go wrong file, Google testing Highly Rated By Users in Mobile Carousels. Google is testing a new carousel in the mobile search results named "Highly rated by users." This will show product results that have, um, high ratings from user reviews.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-highly-rated-by-users-carousel-33700.html

Google Merchant Center adds autotagging for all free listings on Google. When auto-tagging is enabled, after someone clicks your free product listing and free local product listing, auto-tagging adds some additional information including a parameter called "result id" to the URL parameters that searchers click on.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchant-center-auto-tagging-all-33709.html

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Several years of Mobile First. What’s changed?

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 22:42:00 +0000

Several years of Mobile First. What’s changed?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-mobile-first-index-guide/437472/

Google clarifies 15MB is really big

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-clarifies-15mb-googlebot-limit-33670.html

8 Tips on Ecommerce from Googler, Alan Kent

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-offers-8-tips-on-e-commerce-seo-33676.html

FCC Commissioner asks Google and Apple to ban TikTok from their respective stores

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/fcc-requests-tiktok-ban/456297/

Google Freshness Update explained by Roger

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/freshness-algorithm/

Google Updates structured data advice for products with multiple variants

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-algorithm-history/freshness-algorithm/

Google rich results guidelines update now prohibits guns,

https://searchengineland.com/google-rich-results-guidelines-now-prohibits-weapons-recreational-drugs-tobacco-vaping-products-and-gambling-related-products-386185

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Social Media Algorithms or HTTP status codes

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 14:29:00 +0000

Greg’s Guide to Social Media Algorithms

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-algorithms/453220/

Roger Montti on LaMDA

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-lamda-sentient/454820/

Google updates its notes on HTTP status codes

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-http-status-codes-googlebot-job-posting-docs-33638.html

Google: Hypens over underscores in URLs

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-underscores-hyhens-in-urls-seo-33631.html

Content that’s not visible isn’t as critically bad as it once was says Gary surprising Martin

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-not-visible-content-33630.html

Office Hours Cut to one per Month

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-office-hours-now-down-to-once-per-month-33621.html

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Google Researcher Punished Saying " Google’s Artificial Intelligence Had Achieved Sentience"

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 04:19:00 +0000

Google Researcher Punished Saying " Google’s Artificial Intelligence Had Achieved Sentience" as Google placed Blake Lemoine on leave last week after he published transcripts of conversations between himself, a Google “collaborator”, and the company’s LaMDA (language model for dialogue applications) chatbot development system. Is AI sentient?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/12/google-engineer-ai-bot-sentient-blake-lemoine

Google Business Profile – Profile Strength Widget produces a box showing a representation of your profile’s health, along with prompts for creating offers, reviews, and new content or updates.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-business-profile-strength-widget-33596.html

Google Search Console Changes

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-invalid-or-valid-classifications-33594.html

Why Google Analytics and Google Search Console data differ

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-analytics-gsc-data-mismatch/438508/

Complete Guide to GSC

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/guide-google-search-console/452534/

Google experimenting with more featured snippets in SERPs

https://searchengineland.com/google-testing-new-featured-snippet-layouts-385861

Internet Explorer’s dead

Compare feature in GSC performance reports

https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-testing-compare-feature-in-performance-reports-385855

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Google Core Update Finished Rolling Out

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 04:13:00 +0000

Google Core Update finished rolling out

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-core-update-done-rolling-out-33562.html

EU Publishers and Webmasters can’t block US traffic without also blocking Google and Googlebot

https://www.seroundtable.com/eu-publishers-block-us-users-google-33557.html

Don’t add your company name to image alt-text. It’s redundant, undescriptive, and not helpful

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-company-name-in-blank-image-alt-text-33538.html

Yoast and IndexNow “They changed how it worked a bit (or explained it better) where we only have to ping one endpoint. With that, we basically replace the xml sitemap ping with a call to IndexNow and it’s done.””

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yoast-on-why-its-adopting-indexnow-protocol/453516/

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Apple Search Engine? Siri Gets Smarter?

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 16:27:00 +0000

Reports say Apple is likely to announce a new user-centric web search. However, for the search engine to become functional, Apple wants to wait till January 2023 to do so.

Apple published a list of things that might affect rankings back in 2020

• Aggregated user engagement with search results

• Relevancy and matching of search terms to webpage topics and content

• Number and quality of links from other pages on the web

• User location based signals (approximate data)

• Webpage design characteristics

https://www.seroundtable.com/apple-search-ranking-factors-29821.html

John Giannandrea – was head of search at Google, left for Apple in March 2018 to lead Apple machine learning and AI division. https://www.seroundtable.com/john-giannandrea-from-google-heads-to-apple-25517.html

Core Updates use data from before the update starts. They might update data between Core Update events. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-core-update-data-refresh-33509.html

This Core Update... https://www.seroundtable.com/google-may-2022-broad-core-update-seo-impact-33512.html

New Google author markup for article structured data

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-author-markup-best-practices-33530.html

"To help Google best understand and represent the author of the content, we recommend following these best practices when specifying authors in markup."

• Include all authors in the markup

• Specify multiple authors when applicable

• Use the additional fields that is available to you

• Only specify the author’s name in the author.name property

• Use the appropriate author type

Wix Structured Data guide

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wix-structured-data/451282/

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RIP Bill Slawski, the Dean of SEO

Thu, 26 May 2022 15:26:00 +0000

Jim and Kristine comment on the sudden passing of the great Bill Slawski, the Dean of SEO

https://www.seroundtable.com/rip-bill-slawski-33446.html

May 2022 Broad Core Update

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/05/may-2022-core-update

More FAQs being promoted in Rich Results?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-showing-more-search-results-with-faq-rich-results-33479.html

Don’t get hung up on Toxic Links

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-on-toxic-links-tool-marketing-33435.html

Suing for Social Media addiction, California law allows parents

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/california-bill-allows-parents-to-sue-for-childs-social-media-addiction/451807/

WordPress 6.0 “Arturo”

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-6-0-is-released/451366/

Meta changes how it does political ads, or does it?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/meta-brings-transparency-to-electoral-political-ads/451616/

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Google Russia Declares Bankruptcy ; Canada forces Google and Facebook to pay News Publishers

Thu, 19 May 2022 16:40:00 +0000

Google Russia declares bankruptcy after Russian authorities seize bank account.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/05/googles-russia-subsidiary-is-filing-for-bankruptcy/

Canada forces Google and Facebook to pay news publishers for loss of ad revenue – Search Engine Journal and the misuse of the word tax.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-criticizes-canadas-proposed-link-tax/450878/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-google-warns-ottawas-online-news-act-would-break-its-search-engine/

-Online News Act, Bill C18

“to compel global tech companies such as Facebook and Google to negotiate payment agreements with news organizations as compensation for news content that appears on the large platforms.” Modeled on successful Australian legislation

“There is no link tax. Canadians are not paying for anything, and no money goes to the government. Facebook and Google earn money from having links to news sites on their platforms because the work of independent journalists has value,” Ashley Michnowski, spokesperson for Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said. “We have had constructive conversations with Google, yet they’re pulling from their original playbook in Australia when Google tried to avoid regulation by exaggerating their concerns.”

Facebook’s Most Followed Content is mostly Spam – Facebook transparency Report

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebooks-most-widely-viewed-links-dominated-by-spam/450826/

Top 101 SEO Tools that are free – Jon Clark, Search Engine Journal

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-seo-tools-free/435299/

John Mu – Spam is Spam, no matter what language you speak

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-see-search-spam-in-multiple-languages-33438.html

Interaction to Next Paint might become a core web vital

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-core-web-vitals-fid-with-inp-33429.html

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Google Says Ignore Bad SEO advice and Removes Bad SEO Advice.

Fri, 13 May 2022 04:12:00 +0000

Google Says Ignore Bad SEO advice and Removes Bad SEO Advice.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-word-count-keyword-density-slide-33399.html

All Search related stuff from Google I/O

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-i-o-2022-search-related-announcements-33403.html

Use it or Lose it – Google Search Console will stop gathering data if you stop looking at it

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-stop-collecting-data-33402.html

PageSpeed Insights Adds new Lighthouse Speed metrics

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-lighthouse-page-speed-metrics/449842/

Google Updates Advice on Controlling Titles in Search

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-shows-how-to-control-titles-in-search-results/449866/

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Removing Personal Identifiable information from Google

Fri, 29 Apr 2022 00:21:00 +0000

The Right to Remove Personal Identifiable information from Google

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-remove-pii-33326.html

Google, “we’re not stealing your content, you’re stealing ours!”

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-stealing-knowledge-panel-content-33328.html

New editor-in-chief at Search Engine Journal, Amanda Zantal-Wiener former Deputy Editor and Content Manager at HubSpot

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/sej-eic-amanda-zantal-wiener/447271/

Using AI, false DMCA notices, and fake lawyers to generate or coerce backlinks

https://www.seroundtable.com/fake-dmca-ai-generated-lawyers-links-33308.html

EU amendments to the Digital Services Act calls for Google to show key parts of algorithm and to perhaps allow users to influence the information they see

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/proposal_for_a_regulation_on_a_single_market_for_digital_services.pdf

Google updates 3-strike policy for advertisers adds nine new areas of concern

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ads-implements-3-strike-policy-rule/447780/

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-strike-based-system-9-more-33306.html

Google notes financial impact of Russia’s illegal invasion and occupation of Ukraine.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-feels-earnings-impact-from-russian-war-on-ukraine/447684/

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Whats Next After Google Universal Analytics

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 00:26:00 +0000

New Google tool allows you to import goals from Universal Analytics (UA3) to GA4

https://www.seroundtable.com/universal-analytics-goals-import-google-analytics-33268.html

Don’t tell them it’s broken Roger, tell them the issue is Statically Evolving.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-real-time-reporting-bugs-33291.html

Tweak New Twitter

Home > Extentions > Tweak New Twitter

Google AI creating Google sourced Knowledge Panels

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-writing-its-own-knowledge-panels-33290.html

lose-work-without-warning/

Don’t switch horses in mid stream. Don’t change tires while driving. Don’t try to test new URLs on live sites just because.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dont-change-urls-and-change-them-back-seo-33237.html

Ahrefs has raised 1.5Million for Ukraine

https://searchengineland.com/ahrefs-ukraine-fundraising-383731

Guttenberg 13.0 showing features coming in WP6

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-gutenberg-13/446758/

Best times and worst times to post to social media

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/best-times-to-post-on-social-media-in-2022/446255/

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Multiple Campaigns and Multiple Accounts Support Comes to Google Ads

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 00:38:00 +0000

March 2022 Google Product Update has completed its rollout

https://www.seroundtable.com/march-2022-google-product-reviews-update-live-33235.html

Multiple Campaigns + multiple accounts support comes to Google Ads

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-aggregate-reporting-on-manager-level-33253.html

No Technical method for achieving a featured snippet beyond great content

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-featured-snippets-gaining-33249.html

You can’t just write, “I tested this product” and expect a bump from the new Product Update

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-tested-product-reviews-update-33255.html

You need good, original review content.

Google stipulates Ai written content is against guidelines when used to manipulate Google

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-automatically-generated-content-against-guidelines-when-intended-to-manipulate-search-rankings-33243.html

Latency issue in UA3 and GA4 is fixed, again, says Google

https://searchengineland.com/google-claims-to-fix-google-analytics-latency-issues-383524

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Elon Musk Twitter Takeover and Google Data Studio Visualizations

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 20:46:25 +0000

Today we'll discuss a bubble chart that can help you understand which queries are performing well for your site, and which could be improved.

Data Studio Visualizations

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/04/performance-optimization-bubble-chart

AI Content against Google Guidelines

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-says-ai-generated-content-is-against-guidelines/444916/

Wayback Machine archiving Ukrainian Internet

https://spectrum.ieee.org/internet-archive-ukraine

Conference Organizer, Vasil Azarov died earlier this week at age 40. Details of his death are unavailable at this time. Vasil organized the Brand Growth, B2B Growth, and the Growth Marketing Conference. He was also a community advocate and fundraiser.

Google My Business App is being discontinued

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-my-business-app-going-away-33198.html

Facebook WiFi

https://www.facebook.com/facebook-wifi/getting-started

Zuck Bucks – like Whoopie Goldberg’s Flooz but backed by a multi-billion dollar corporation

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/04/07/1528241/meta-is-making-zuck-bucks

https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/6/23013896/meta-facebook-zuck-bucks-finance-financial-services-products

Elon’s Twitter

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/elon-musk-twitter-impact/444860/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/twitter-shares-soar-more-than-25percent-after-elon-musk-takes-9percent-stake-in-social-media-company.html

Google doesn’t care who produces content as long as it’s good quality content

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-outsource-content-33205.html

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Google Analytics 4 Examined with Canadian SEO, Speaker, and Analytics Wrangler Alan K’necht

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 15:12:00 +0000

Google is rolling out a new label is search results for pages that are recognized as highly cited sources. Plus, Google Analytics 4 is Examined and Jim and Dave discuss this and more with Canadian SEO, Speaker, and Analytics Wrangler Alan K’necht.

Google on support for Ukraine

https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/warsaw-announcing-more-support-ukraine/

TikTok testing search ads

https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-tests-search-ads-383234

Product Reviews Update causing flux

https://www.seroundtable.com/volatility-march-2022-google-product-reviews-update-33177.html

Nofollow links are not followed, period

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-nofollow-dampening-factor-33169.html

Google Now Using MUM For Detecting Personal Crisis Searches & BERT For Detecting Shocking Content

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mum-bert-crisis-shock-33176.html

MUM – multitask unified model

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-multitask-unified-model-mum-31441.html

BERT - Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-bert-update-28427.html

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Application Security with Cybersecurity Author Ted Harrington

Fri, 25 Mar 2022 01:33:00 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Ted Harrington who argues that companies need to take a similar approach to secure their systems. He explains how important it is to think outside the box and be willing to push boundaries in potentially troublesome ways, whether the subject is application security or something else entirely.

Ted Harrington is the author of HACKABLE: How to Do Application Security Right, and the Executive Partner at Independent Security Evaluators (ISE), the company of ethical hackers famous for being the first to hack the iPhone. He’s overseen security research hacking medical devices, password managers, and cryptocurrency wallets. Ted has helped hundreds of companies fix tens of thousands of security vulnerabilities, including Disney, Amazon, Google, Netflix, Adobe, Warner Brothers, Qualcomm, and more. For his stewardship of security research that Wired Magazine says “wins the prize, hands down,” Ted has been named both Executive of the Year [by American Business Awards] and 40 Under 40 [by SD Metro].

He leads a team that started and organizes IoT Village, an event whose hacking contest is a three-time DEFCON Black Badge winner, and which represents the discovery of more than 300 zero-day vulnerabilities (and counting). Ted‘s work has been featured in more than 100 media outlets, including The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today. Ted is a Boston Marathon finisher, and holds a Bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, where he started his first company while a student.

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Google Announces End to Universal Analytics

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 20:05:00 +0000

Beware the Ides of March! Google announces end to Universal Analytics .

“Universal Analytics was built for a generation of online measurement that was anchored in the desktop web, independent sessions and more easily observable data from cookies,” Russell Ketchum, director, product management at Google, said in the announcement. “This measurement methodology is quickly becoming obsolete.”

https://searchengineland.com/google-deprecate-universal-analytics-on-july-1-2023-382648

Google explained the timeline as follows:

• Until July 1, 2023, you can continue to use and collect new data in your Universal Analytics properties.

• After July 1, 2023, you'll be able to access your previously processed data in your Universal Analytics property for at least six months. We know your data is important to you, and we strongly encourage you to export your historical reports during this time.

• In the coming months, we'll provide a future date for when existing Universal Analytics properties will no longer be available. After this future date, you'll no longer be able to see your Universal Analytics reports in the Analytics interface or access your Universal Analytics data via the API.

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John Mueller Schools SEO On Google Ranking & Spam

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 14:57:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how John Mueller of Google responded to a complaint on Reddit where the SEO or site owner was upset his one month old site was not performing on Google Search. The SEO said despite him "created backlinks on top websites with good DA and low spam score" his site is just not showing up.

SERoundtable shared the back and forth.

Here was his post, "I have created backlinks on top websites with good DA and low spam score but its been 1 month and still I'm unable to see my backlinks getting index on google search. I cant even find them on Semrush. Is there any solution or I have to wait more?"

John Mueller's response was like a teacher giving a harsh one-on-one to a kid who caused trouble in class. John replies:

(1) You are wasting your time:

I'm torn about leaving a snarky reply, but to be a bit more useful, I'd consider that perhaps you're not spending your time on things that are as effective for SEO as you'd like. Dropping links on random sites is not SEO anymore, it's just spam. All search engines have had to deal & ignore these kinds of things for years now.

(2) You are focused too much on the tools:

This is not to mention that a SEO tool will never be able to tell you if a "link is indexed". Everyone who crawls the web does it in a different way, with different speeds, with different assumptions. Even if you can see a link in the Google cache, that says absolutely nothing about whether that link is used for anything in search.

(3) Throw your strategy away and focus on long term, real effort strategies:

If you're trying to improve on SEO, my strong recommendation would be to throw all of this thinking out. You're wasting your own time on it now, and even if something accidentally happens to stick for a bit, it will quickly dry up - search engines have a lot of practice with low-effort, low-quality stuff, and they have no interest in spending any energy on it if they can.

So the response from the SEO was that he has "no technical issues" on his site and the "content is of good quality and unique" but he is super upset about his backlinks (which makes no sense but okay). He then goes to list that he has "dofollow links" from sites like HotFrog, Yelp, Foursquare, Chamber of Commerce. He then demands that his "backlinks cant be ignored."

So John Mueller replies again in a harsher but caring way:

I don't know your site (and don't really have time to dig into anything at the moment), but to be quite honest, all of what you've said there raises red flags for me in terms of low-effort / low-quality sites. Maybe it's ok enough to scrape by at some point, but at that level, you're going to see things come & go randomly, as updates happen across search engines.Maybe you don't care about long-term success, maybe getting some quick traffic & leaving is fine for you - that's ultimately up to you and everyone has done quick hacks in the past too. If you do care about long-term success in search with this site, or want to learn how to work on legitimate long-term sites, I'd recommend, well, not spending too much time on trying to hack together links like this.

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The State of SEOs in Ukraine

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This week we have another special guest, Olesia Korobka, a SEO consultant based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Olesia is compiling a list of SEOs in Ukraine who need work or stability.

Google Search Central Virtual Unconference Returns at the end of the month – Martin Splitt tweeted with a “stay tuned” notice

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-central-virtual-unconference-back-for-2022-33018.html

No such thing as quotas for the number of rankings a website can achieve https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ranking-quotas-33014.html

Index Now added to Duda, All in One WordPress, and Rank Math SEO Plugins https://www.seroundtable.com/indexnow-duda-all-in-one-wordpress-rank-math-seo-plugins-33001.html

Yoast suggests IndexNow a lot more When than Now – Doesn’t improve crawl efficiency or lead to more traffic

https://www.seroundtable.com/yoast-indexnow-proof-33013.html

GSC URL Inspection Tool Errors

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-url-inspection-tool-errors-33010.html

They shalt not blocketh Americans https://www.seroundtable.com/blocking-usa-users-googlebot-33005.html

If you are not allowed to show your website to users based in the United States, then you also cannot show that website to Googlebot.

CSS colours are not ranking factors.

https://www.seroundtable.com/css-colors-are-not-a-google-ranking-factor-32968.html

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Voices from Ukraine

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:27:00 +0000

Today's episode was recorded the day Russia invaded Ukraine. Jim and Dave speak with two SEO industry members living and working in Kiev, Igor Shulezhko and Anton Shulke.

Igor Shulezhko is a Russian speaking Ukranian living in Kiev. He is a brand ambassador for Serpstat, a cofounder of rankUP, and co-owner of Shmeo.link/. He has a friend translating for him.

Anton Shulke is head of Influencer Marketing at Duda, the highly SEO friendly CMS platform. Originally from Moscow, Anton lives in Kiev, Ukraine.

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Paid Media and Digital Marketing Strategist Navah Hopkins Returns

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 16:38:00 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Navah Hopkins, a search industry veteran, has officially launched her consulting business, Navah Hopkins Consulting, LLC.

Bill Hartzer.com reports:Navah is a a highly sought-after paid media and digital marketing strategist with over a decade of empowering brands and the agencies. In her new consulting firm, she plans on providing Digital marketing strategy, Account audits, SAAS product strategy, and General business strategy.

In the past, Navah has worked for companies like Adzooma, Justuno, Hennessey Digital, and WordStream. I’ve known her for years as one of the world’s best Paid Media specialists, and I’ve seen her speak about paid search and paid media at conferences such as Pubcon and State of Search.

Navah has a passion for innovation, fueled by a hybrid of strategic partnerships, data analysis, and consumer engagement. She loves connecting people who can mutually benefit each other, leveraging innovation to solve socioeconomic issues, and maintaining bottom line thinking with an ethics driven perspective.

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How The Pandemic Increased Demand for SEO

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 16:18:00 +0000

How The Pandemic Increased Demand for SEO

Joe Hall posted a Twitter poll asking the SEO community how the pandemic impacted their SEO business. The poll had 614 responses and most said that the pandemic has brought an increased demand in SEO.

83.2% said it is a true statement to say "the pandemic has brought an increased demand in SEO." 16.8% of those who responded said it is a false statement to say "the pandemic has brought an increased demand in SEO."

https://www.seroundtable.com/seo-pandemic-demand-32887.html

Google introduces Google Ads API version 10-0

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-api-version-10-32903.html

Google AdWords API expires in April 2022

Notice bigger fonts in your query? Google’s testing...

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-larger-fonts-in-desktop-search-bar-32897.html

Chrome Journeys

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-chrome-journeys-rolling-out-now-32895.html

More Messages in Search Console

https://searchengineland.com/expect-more-messages-in-google-search-console-380136

Search Ads 360?

https://searchengineland.com/google-launches-revamped-search-ads-360-380043

Dates in title tags

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-on-the-seo-impact-of-dates-in-title-tags/437397/

Kristopher Jones on SEO for Amazon

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/amazon-seo-sellers-guide/436454/

Doing product reviews? Use original photos

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-recommends-original-photos-for-product-reviews/437050/

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1+ Million WordPress Sites Vulnerable to Remote Code Execution Attacks

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:00:00 +0000

1+ Million WordPress sites affected by vulnerabilities that could lead to remote code execution attacks

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-vulnerability-in-essential-addons-for-elementor/436179/

Webcology named as one of the 15 top SEO podcasts

https://ahrefs.com/blog/best-seo-podcasts/

New Google Partners Program: After nearly two years, the new Partners program requirements have taken effect and Google will notify all Partners of their current status.

https://www.seroundtable.com/new-google-partners-program-32867.html

Facebook lost users for first time in a decade. Stock declined by 22%

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SEOClarity Launches ClarityAutomate Solution to Achieving SEO Results

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 20:25:11 +0000

Jim and Dave welcome back Mark Traphagen and Mitul Gandhi to discuss the launch of ClarityAutomate a groundbreaking new platform that solves the most fundamental roadblock to achieving SEO results: execution.

ClarityAutomate empowers SEOs to take control of their results, tackling gaps in technology, skills and resources to execute SEO changes in real time through its innovative no-code SEO technology.

Equipped with flexible implementation and a powerful logic engine within seoClarity’s award-winning technology, users of ClarityAutomate can finally progress on their SEO project list with consistency, precision and ease — all within a matter of minutes — not days, weeks or months.

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Danny Goodwin Talks to Webcology About Joining Search Engine Land

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 11:46:00 +0000

Danny Goodwin Talks to Jim and Dave About Joining Search Engine Land.

Search Engine Land is happy to welcome well-known search marketing journalist Danny Goodwin to the team as Senior Editor. Goodwin will join the editorial team, which also includes editors Barry Schwartz and George Nguyen, to help us to deliver best-in-class journalism on search and performance marketing to you – our global audience of digital marketers.

In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin will also manage and grow Search Engine Land’s roster of subject-matter experts. He will also help program our conference series SMX – Search Marketing Expo, working with our Events Content Director Kathy Bushman.

Prior to joining us, Goodwin was Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal, where he led editorial initiatives for the brand.

Goodwin is a respected member of the search community going all the way back to 2007 when he began as an editor for Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many major search conferences and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts. He’s seen first-hand how this industry has evolved over the years and we are thrilled that he will bring his intelligence and perspective to Search Engine Land and SMX.

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Google Union Busting or Content Priority

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 01:27:00 +0000

Google Union Busting

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/google-hired-union-busting-consultants-to-convince-employees-unions-suck/

Project Vivian.” In the words of one senior manager, Project Vivian existed “to engage employees more positively and convince them that unions suck.”

National Labour Relations Board judge Paul Bogas

Content Priority

https://www.seroundtable.com/poll-seos-to-allocate-resources-32726.html

Aleyda Solis @aleyda

55.3% Content

23.7% Technical

17.1% Link Building

Google doesn’t understand fluff content.

“So much duplicated content about duplicate content” John Mueller, Jan 7, 2022

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-fluff-content-32747.html

Interesting conversation about how much information Google should (or will) share about Core Updates.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-debates-sharing-details-core-updates-32737.html

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-cant-provide-details-about-core-algorithm-updates/432651/ - Matt Southen

Search Off The Record podcast with John Mueller, Gary Illyes and Martin Splitt

Don’t block slow countries to improve Core Web Vital Scores

https://www.seroundtable.com/block-slow-regions-google-core-web-vitals-32723.html

I don’t think Google measures it like that...

Disavow is a machete. Only use it as such

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-disavow-whole-domains-links-32738.html

“Search Quality Guidelines are not for SEOs”, John Mueller, Jan 13 2022

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-quality-rating-guidelines-not-seo-32744.html

Cloudflare for SEO Guide/Article at SEJ

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/cloudflare-seo/429887/

by: Ludwig Makhyan

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Webcology – The 2020 II edition?

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 14:23:00 +0000

Moving into the New Year I have a strange sense of déjà vu. Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 2020 Two, the updated edition.

This is the sixth day of January, 2022. A year ago, before the attempted coup, we were all so much younger. Now it just feels numb, and dumb, and sometime sort of pointless. It feels like we’re entering the new year running it petal to the metal, full tilt in neutral. The incredible spikes in COVID infections over the last few weeks from Omicron is so far beyond believable it makes knowledge of what is coming in the next two weeks unfathomable. Happy New Year eh? I got Omicroned for Christmas. Myself and my partner Shana both got exposed and infected over the two week holiday period. I think it might have happened in a cell phone store. For me, it was very very mild. I had a nasty cold sore and a half day of sniffles. I would have been exposed 10 – 14 days after getting my third dose booster shot of SpikeVax, the punkrock name given to the Moderna vaccine. Shana, who as many of you know was infected early in April 2020, caught her second bout of Covid. In her it manifested as one of the harshest flues she’s had in years. She had yet to receive a booster shot.

The next two weeks are likely to be crazy. I hope I’m wrong but expect a lot of people to phone in sick and a lot of services and shops to be shut down for lack of staff. If we’re smart, four to six weeks from now could look very different but, if there’s one thing I am absolutely sure of, we’re not nearly smart enough when it comes to existential emergencies. 2022 is going to teach us all a lot of lessons, some good and some bad. I think how things work out will have a lot to do with how we learn them.

Blackberry old goes dark

(Mr. Jones, we’ve solved your Crackberry addiction...)

Bing IndexNow WordPress Plugin available

https://www.seroundtable.com/indexnow-wordpress-plugin-released-32709.html

Migration advice – don’t drop AMP during migration

https://www.seroundtable.com/migrate-domains-remove-google-amp-seo-32696.html

Ways to generate some Soft 404s

https://www.seroundtable.com/error-like-pages-soft-404-google-32690.html

Language quality can impact multilingual sites

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-language-version-site-quality-impact-32686.html

Danny Goodwin leaving Search Engine Journal Why? We don’t know but we’re gonna get the scoop on it. Danny’s joining us on January 20^th to talk about a life editing decision and a life editing some of the largest and most read search news websites.

Did SEOS work over Xmas?

19.5% Yes, a lot

33.3%, Yes, a little

47.2%, Nope, not at all

https://www.seroundtable.com/seos-work-over-the-christmas-holiday-break-32662.html

Some basic questions answered by John Mu

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/does-domain-extension-affect-seo/431956/#close

2021, a year of changes and updates

https://searchengineland.com/google-algorithm-updates-2021-in-review-core-updates-product-reviews-page-experience-and-beyond-378017

The Google Developers Style Guide, on <h1>headings</H1>

https://developers.google.com/style/headings

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The Ultimate Guide to Google Ads with Mike Rhodes, Founder of Websavvy

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 15:23:00 +0000

Jim and Dave speak to Mike Rhodes, a serial entrepreneur and founder of one of Australia's largest digital marketing firms, Websavvy about his book, the Ultimate Guide to Google Ads.

Rhodes had immigrated to Australia from the UK and founded and exited three other businesses before founding Websavvy in 2006. He is now a conference speaker, an investor, and a father. He joins us from Melbourne Australia.

Covering the latest breaking news in Google AdWords, the book's fifth edition introduces revised, expanded and new chapters covering Enhanced Campaigns, Google AdWord's Express, Google's Product Listing Ads, and the introduction to Google's Universal Analytics. Nuances in Big Data advertising are also revealed and expanded sections and necessary updates have been added throughout.

Readers are given the latest information paired with current screenshots, fresh examples, and new techniques. Coached by AdWords experts Perry Marshall, Mike Rhodes, and Bryan Todd advertisers learn how to build an aggressive, streamlined AdWords campaign proven to increase their search engine visibility, consistently capture clicks, double their website traffic, and increase their sales. Whether a current advertiser or new to AdWords, this guide is a necessary handbook.

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The SEO Who Wasn’t or You Don’t Need Links to Rank.

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 19:51:00 +0000

The SEO Who Wasn’t or You Don’t Need Links to Rank.

The SEO who wasn’t (learned a few tricks)

https://www.seroundtable.com/seo-learned-a-few-tricks-job-32596.html

Google <3’s affiliates just like affiliates <3 Google – No nofollow? No Problems

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-wont-penalize-no-nofollowing-affiliate-links-32597.html

You don’t need links to rank. Links are not mandatory.

https://www.seroundtable.com/links-are-not-mandatory-for-ranking-in-google-search-32558.html

Susequently ... Google: You Can't Tell Which SEO Efforts Led To Ranking Success

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-success-mystery-32599.html

G4 now supports GSC data https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-4-now-supports-google-search-console-data-32604.html

Log4J https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-log4j-32605.html

Google wasn’t crawling or indexing new content for a few hours this morning

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-not-indexing-crawling-new-content-32606.html

Plus, Google Search Console was down intermittently for some. Two different sources received a 429 error.

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The Effect of Expired Landing Pages

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 05:34:00 +0000

The Effect of Expired Landing Pages and other items from your website’s landfill on SEO https://searchengineland.com/how-expired-landing-pages-kill-your-google-rankings-377055

Great piece by Kasper Szymanski at SEL.Google local search algo update last week – coinciding with the introduction of the new Google (my) Business environment

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-local-search-ranking-algorithm-update-32562.html

Relevancy and Core Update Factors,

John Meuller refers SEOs a blog post Google posted in August 2019 https://www.seroundtable.com/google-help-advice-core-algorithm-updates-27984.html

(https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/08/core-updates.html)

The recent Google Products Algo update is said to be larger than the one that ran six or seven months ago in April

https://searchengineland.com/googles-december-2021-product-reviews-update-was-bigger-than-the-april-product-reviews-update-say-data-providers-377056

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Holiday SEO Roundtable Discussion with Kristine Schachinger, Jenny Halasz, and Ryan Jones.

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 22:43:00 +0000

Jim Hedger hosts a Holiday SEO Roundtable Discussion with Kristine Schachinger, Jenny Halasz, and Ryan Jones.

6 signs you need to migrate your ecomm store

Now that online shopping season is ending it’s the time for migrations

https://litextension.com/blog/6-signs-website-replatforming

18 years Congrats to Barry Schwartz and Search Engine Roundtable

https://www.seroundtable.com/18-years-old-32491.html

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-url-change-seo-drop-32516.html

Old changes don’t make a lot of differences today

Parag Agrawal is new Twitter CEO https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/29/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-is-expected-to-step-down-sources-say.html

Google 2021 Core Update Rolled out and finished. Google 2021 product review update rolling out.

https://searchengineland.com/google-december-2021-product-reviews-update-rolling-out-376672

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seoClarity 2021 Clickthrough Rate Research Study

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 17:51:00 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Mark Traphagen (VP of Product Marketing & Training) and Mitul Gandhi, (Chief Architect & Co-Founder) of seoClarity.

They discuss the findings of new a new CTR study where they used over 750+ billion impressions across 17+ billion unique keywords to analyze CTRs by position, device (mobile and desktop), country, seasonality and even industry.

What makes seoClarity’s study remarkably different from all other studies is the sheer volume of actual data analyzed - 750+ billion impressions, 30+ billion clicks across 17+ billion unique keywords. This makes it the largest CTR study ever!

The end result is a robust CTR model broken down by device, keyword type, country, seasonality and industry. This provides more actionable data for search marketers who are looking for the most reliable figures unique to them and their industry.

Some of the notable findings included:

CTR by Device

Mobile users are less likely to click top-ranked listings than desktop users.

Mobile results gain 85.8% more impressions than results on desktop.

Click-through rate for position 1 decreases from 8.17% on desktop to 6.74% on mobile devices.

CTR by Country

For position 1, the lowest click-through rates are seen in the US, at 9.13%.

The US has the lowest click-through rates both for the Top 10 search results and the Top 20.

Users may be scrolling more than ever before - CTR in positions 17-20 is actually higher than positions 11-16 across the globe.

CTR by Seasonality

May and December are the months with the lowest click-through rates, and July through to September are the highest.

CTR By Industry

CTRs by position vary significantly from industry to industry.

‘Real Estate’ has the highest average CTR (all devices) across the top 10 positions (2.45%), and ‘Apparel & Fashion’ has the lowest (1.43%).

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Google Stops Crawling Pages Based on XML Sitemap

Thu, 18 Nov 2021 05:56:00 +0000

Old XML Sitemaps won’t help your migration recoveries very much

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-old-xml-sitemaps-url-migration-32441.html

Google isn’t crawling pages based on the XML sitemap. New sitemaps might prompt new crawls but old ones won’t push Google to new pages faster.

Google’s SEO Interactive Checklist

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-interactive-seo-checklist-32447.html

https://developers.google.com/search

Google Translated Search

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-translate-help-docs-32446.html

Google Updates Indian searches with Translated Search

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-translated-serps/427428/

Lighthouse 9.0

https://searchengineland.com/lighthouse-9-0-includes-api-changes-user-flows-updated-reports-and-more-376120

Twitter no longer sends users to AMP pages

https://searchengineland.com/twitter-rolls-back-amp-support-no-longer-sends-users-to-amp-pages-376168

Schema markup – Logos need to look good on white backgrounds - https://searchengineland.com/google-logo-schema-markup-now-requires-logos-to-look-good-on-white-backgrounds-376170

Edward Snowden calls Google on privacy

https://searchengineland.com/edward-snowden-calls-out-google-over-search-engines-privacy-376115

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Google November spam update is Fully Rolled Out

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 05:15:00 +0000

Google November spam update is fully rolled out by @rustybrick. November Spam Update might be a bit less well adjusted than...

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-november-spam-update-impactful-32394.html

Hi Robot

https://www.seroundtable.com/googlebot-ip-addresses-32402.html

Google releases the IP addresses of its various bots in a JSON file. Google can kill your ads if you violate the organic webmaster guidelines – very rare but it’s happened. I know it happens in reverse too eh?

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-account-suspensions-over-violating-webmaster-guidelines-32386.html

Goog wins some Goog lose some. It was a busy morning for Google in the European region; first losing its EU antitrust case for $2.8 billion for abusing search engine dominance by promoting its own shopping service. Then the UK Supreme Court dismissing the case against Google for allegedly tracking iOS Safari users without their consent for $4 billion.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-loses-antitrust-shopping-search-but-wins-ios-tracking-uk-case-32399.html

SEO to Everyone: 02:00 PM

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/discovered-not-indexed/426457/

You should be creating links to yourself

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-you-shouldnt-be-creating-links-to-your-site-32398.html

RIP John Carcutt

https://www.seroundtable.com/rip-john-carcutt-32388.html

Sites need to be worthwhile to be indexed

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/discovered-not-indexed/426457/

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Google Tackles Spam and Adult Content

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 05:17:00 +0000

Google Tackles Spam and Adult Content

An update targeting content that doesn’t follow the Google guidelines started rolling out today. Named the November Spam Update...

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-november-2021-spam-update-32365.html

Google doesn’t necessarily know what smut is but it knows smut when it sees it.

Google has no objective measure of “adultness”

Lily Ray asked about the rating = adult tag and when it should be applied

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-metric-adult-content-32349.html

Who you gonna call? GSC Property Verification Busters!

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-contact-domain-verification-user-access-issues-32355.html

Google uses a lot of signals to detect guest posts beyond anchor text https://www.seroundtable.com/google-uses-many-signals-to-detect-guest-posts-32338.html

Penguins can be scary at Scale

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-penguin-target-whole-site-32336.html

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Facebook changes company name to Meta

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 18:46:45 +0000

Facebook changes company name to Meta https://cnb.cx/3blo77s

The company will also change its stock ticker from FB to MVRS, effective Dec. 1

Out of the Box Core Web Vitals Speeds

Who wins the CMS race? WordPress, Duda, Drupal, or Wix?

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/core-web-vitals-wordpress-drupal-duda-wix/425071/

Images don’t help you rank... (not so sure this answer is entirely thought out)

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-web-search-images-32318.html

John Mueller suggests images aren’t important to web search. Using the example of a grey box, John said, “within web search we don't really care if it's a gray square or if it's a picture of a beach.” He goes on to say Google does care in image search what the content of an image is but in web search, adding more images won’t help you rank.

That may be well and true but there are a number of attributes and basic properties to and about images that Google does need to care about. How big is it? How is it loading? When is it loading? Does its existence add to or take away from page usability? Is there alt text describing the image? These are important items that speak to more than the mere content of an image.

Site Quality can cause a loss of rich snippets

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/site-quality-and-rich-results/425186/

Remove images of minors from Google search

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-remove-images-of-minors-32321.html

Black Hat work? SEO Poll sees a 50% / 50% spread in community

https://www.seroundtable.com/seos-split-on-doing-blackhat-seo-32304.html

So like, this is a public service announcement for the people of Tumbler Ridge British Columbia up in way upper Canada eh? Like, so we heard your Internet was down last weekend eh? You probably knew that already though. We just wanted to tells ya that Telus found out whose been skunking your systems eh? It was the beavers. The damn beavers did it building another damn dam. For sure eh? You can see the pictures that Telus posted overs on their like Internet web page or at Arstechnica, which is thoroughly amused by the story. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/04/cable-chewing-beavers-take-out-towns-internet-in-uniquely-canadian-outage/

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Facebook Corporate Rebrand To Reflect Role In the Metaverse

Fri, 22 Oct 2021 15:20:02 +0000

Facebook Corporate Rebrand To Reflect Role In the Metaverse

https://dailyhive.com/toronto/facebook-new-name-rebrand-report

Story broke in TheVerge https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735612/facebook-change-company-name-metaverse

Facebook doesn’t know how they will rebrand (short history of renaming efforts at FB)

https://mashable.com/article/facebook-zuckeberg-new-name

Facebook slammed by its own oversight board for VIP treatment of VIPs

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/21/1047928585/oversight-board-slams-facebook-for-giving-special-treatment-to-vip-users

Martin Splitt on How Google Sees and recons content on a page and in a site

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/centerpiece-annotation/424152/

Roger Montti breaks down a long Duda Webinar from Jason Barnard in which Google’s Martin Splitt describes how the search engine examines content, determines topic, and separates out other sections of content

Google Analytics Bug Data Loss

13:59:44 From Dave Davies : https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-bug-data-loss-32281.html

PayPal Pinterest Acquisition Offer

From Dave Davies : https://www.searchenginejournal.com/paypal-pinterest-acquisition-offer/424221/

YouTube SEO Auto Chapter Now a Metadata For Search

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-seo-auto-chapters-now-a-source-of-metadata-for-search/424266/

Bing and Yandex introduce IndexNow

https://www.seroundtable.com/indexnow-bing-yandex-instant-indexing-32268.html

Just in case you needed to know

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-links-in-existing-or-new-windows-32261.html

Search Quality Evaluators Guidlines Changes

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-search-quality-raters-guidelines-32276.html

Google Search Quality Guidelines Update

https://searchengineland.com/google-search-quality-guidelines-update-expand-ymyl-category-defines-lowest-quality-content-and-more-375276

If you think there's been a lot of algo action

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-updates-more-extreme-32277.html

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More Actionable Error Reports for Rich Results in Google Search Console

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:45:00 +0000

More actionable error reports for Rich Results in Google Search Console
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-results-status-reports-detailed-32212.html
Penalizing Interlinked Link Schemes
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-interlinked-link-schemes-32207.html
Carbon Rating your Flying Routes – Sustainable with Google
https://www.seroundtable.com/sustainability-with-google-32206.html
Google Search Console Adds New Rich Results
https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-adds-new-rich-results-status-reports-374993
Google Local Pack Offer Label Attribute
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-local-pack-offer-label-attribute-32201.html
Google Hints It Will Penalize Interlinked Link Schemes?
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-interlinked-link-schemes-32207.html
Chrome Tests Side By Side Search & Journeys; Browser History With Search
big - https://www.seroundtable.com/chrome-tests-side-by-side-search-journeys-32190.html
Google Ads With Larger Sitelinks Block Design Also
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-larger-sitelinks-block-design-on-google-ads-32189.html
Google Ads Keyword Planner Tool With Trending Data
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-keyword-planner-tool-testing-trending-data-32196.html
Huge Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update On October 2nd & 3rd
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-algorithm-update-32185.html
did we talk about this ?
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/build-fewer-but-stronger-pages-or-create-lots-of-pages/421587/

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Are You Older Than Google?

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 00:20:04 +0000

Are You Older Than Google?
MUM (multitask unified model)
It’s not just a new algorithm; it’s a new way of ordering and facilitating search
-Things to Know – paths users take when exploring this topic (web surfing?)
-Topic Exploration – Using related topics user can zoom into or broaden topic
-Visual Exploration – Image search but actually useful.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-redesign/421415/
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-mum-is-coming-to-lens/421385/
-Google Merchant Center
-Clarity

Google Results Cards
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-about-this-result/421394
Google Doesn’t see stuff behind captchas
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-cant-see-content-behind-captchas/421202/
Google Product Rich Results in Search Console – More info
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-products-rich-results-report-search-console-granular-32173.html
Google gets that search query intent shifts over time
https://www.seroundtable.com/searcher-intent-shifts-google-32155.html
Google and Duplicate Content in product descriptions
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-duplicate-product-descriptions/420899/
“With duplicate content we have essentially two, roughly, different things that we look at.
On the one hand we check if the whole page is the same.
And that includes everything like the header and the footer and the address of the store and things like that, which in your case this would not be the case because one is maybe a manufacturer’s website and the description is the same but everything around it is different.
So that’s kind of the basic kind of duplicate content.”
Search Quality Raters Guide piece
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-eat/quality-raters-guidelines/
EAT and Structured Data
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-eat/structured-data/#close

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Google Search Console Performance Data outage appears to have ended

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 19:24:58 +0000

Google Search Console Performance Data outage appears to have ended
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-back-32131.html

SMX will remain a virtual conference until at least 2022.
https://www.seroundtable.com/smx-virtual-through-2022-32128.html

Google is now allowing advertising of at-home COVID-19 test kits
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-at-home-covid-19-test-kits-listings-32134.html

Author Byline Critical, Needed, or Just Good Practice?
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-bylines-for-trust-on-articles-32110.html

ALL CAPS – Google doesn’t treat them differently
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-all-case-seo-32105.html

Removing old news from your site for SEO reasons isn’t really useful
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-old-news-seo-32109.html

WordPress Ninja Forms plug-in closes two vulnerabilities affecting about 1MM sites
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-ninja-forms-vulnerability-exposes-over-a-million-sites/420726/#close

Getting Verified on Facebook
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-verify-facebook/417649/

Oh the things we know you’ll do when we tell you what to see and who...
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-announces-things-to-do-free-listing-ad-unit/420712/

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What Does it Take to Rank in Google Discover with Lily Ray

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 16:26:00 +0000

Jim and Dave interview Lily Ray, the Sr. Director, SEO & Head of Organic Research at Amsive Digital, where she provides strategic leadership for the agency’s SEO client programs. Born into a family of software engineers, web developers and technical writers, Lily brings a strong technical background, performance-driven habits and forward-thinking creativity to all programs she oversees. Lily began her SEO career in 2010 in a fast-paced start-up environment and moved quickly into the agency world, where she helped grow and establish an award-winning SEO department that delivered high impact work for a fast-growing list of notable clients, including Fortune 500 companies. Lily has worked across a variety of verticals with a focus on retail, e-commerce, b2b and CPG sites.

She comes on to discuss What Does it Take to Rank in Google Discover?
https://www.amsivedigital.com/insights/seo/what-does-it-take-to-rank-in-google-discover/

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Sometimes website quality can’t be fixed with technical changes

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 16:40:00 +0000

Sometimes website quality can’t be fixed with technical changes
Maybe it’s not the Core Web Values. Perhaps it’s not links or that nasty pagination problem. You can make it fast and sometimes Google still doesn’t care. Sometimes a website’s quality isn’t found in the presentation. Sometimes it’s what’s being presented.
“if you want search engines to take your site more seriously, you really, really need to improve the game there."
So making changes to your site speed, core web vitals, changing your structured data, title tags, etc - is simply not enough. You need to look at your website as a whole and see what you can vastly improve on, including site content, navigation, user experience and much more. It is very rarely just one thing.” John Mueller via Twitter
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-website-quality-technical-changes-32058.html
Microsoft Start – Bing’s version of Discover
https://www.seroundtable.com/microsoft-start-32057.html

Syndicated Content be Damned. Don’t republish and expect to rank for that content
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-on-syndicate-or-republish-content-32052.html
14:03:37
Google Ads to start showing advertisers more search term data

•6.5X more data
•retroactively populated back to February 1, 2021 for applicable search terms.
•Google is going to remove search term data predating September 1, 2020 sometime in February 2022
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-to-begin-sharing-more-search-term-data-with-advertisers/419065/
It is historic query data for impression that didn’t result in a click
https://searchengineland.com/google-search-terms-report-adds-historical-query-data-for-impressions-without-clicks-374323

State of Search Survey from SEJ
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/state-of-seo-opportunities/418703/
Get the Lowdown on post-load activity from Project Fraggle Rock
Lightspeed updateds to version 8.3.0. It runs live on Page Speed Insights and will be added to Chrome90s Dev Tools, Sept 21.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/lighthouse-pagespeed-insights-update/418957/

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Google’s Data’s Gone Dave it’s Gone, the Data’s Gone

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 18:24:00 +0000

Google’s Data’s Gone Dave it’s Gone, the Data’s Gone... the data’s gone away
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-data-gone-32011.html
(read from page if necessary)

Twitter $uper Followers
Twitter is allowing a select group of creators (read, American residents) to charge a $3 premium to exchange $uper $pecial inspirations with their followers. Currently available to American users only, $uper Follower Creators need to be
•18 years old
•Have 10K+ active followers
•Have at least 25 tweets posted the previous month
•Be active for at least 3 months
•Have a fully tricked out Twitter profile
•Have a verified email address, and be double authenticated to offer account security
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-super-follows/418378/
Chrome Beta Continueous Search
https://www.seroundtable.com/chrome-beta-continuous-search-32023.html
The beta of a new version of Chrome reportedly displays search results in a scroll across the top of the browser. Glenn Gabe, who is testing the beta version, is noted in SERoundtable with a screenshot of a visit to the Dick’s Sports website. Just above the header containing Dick’s Sporting Goods logo is a Google ad for “The best men’s golf shoes...” at Golf Digest .com
Google Debugs Using Bing
John Mueller wrote he often uses Bing to check if an issue he’s working through is a problem at Google, or a problem on the website in question. SEOs very frequently optimize for Google, given that’s where around 4/5 of the traffic comes from. Though search engines crawl and refresh at different rates, over time you can judge a website’s health by the behaviour of both search engines. If a site is tanking on Google but not so much tanking on Bing, the problem is likely a Googley issue. If the site is having problems on both search engines, the issue is likely a site quality or content clarity issue.
“I often use Bing when debugging. It shows if it's just Google doing something weird, the site doing weird things, or if it changed over time (search engines index at different rates, faster/slower doesn't matter). One of the simplest & fastest checks to do.” John Mueller
https://www.seroundtable.com/john-mueller-debugs-google-using-bing-32022.html
Google’s now warning webmasters not to change title tags to the one’s Google replaced them with.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-html-title-tags-with-google-titles-32007.html

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TikTok might have just bought a Virtual Reality company?

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 18:23:00 +0000

Rumour has it TikTok might have just bought a Virtual Reality company – Robert Scoble FB Tease
The metaverse is quickly gentrifying from a virtually real place to a very real place. I think people really need to think about this space.
UK, as part of Brexit to do away with many EU privacy laws, including the laws covering use of cookies. The plan is to create a more flexible data environment with less bureaucracy and very probably less transparency.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9928843/Britons-rejoice-Government-promises-post-Brexit-end-EUs-GDPR-rules-cookies-pop-up.html Google is not only rewriting title tags, they’re asking you to help them improve!
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-title-complaint-form-31988.html
Google Title Complaint Forum
https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/122879386/your-feedback-on-titles-shown-in-search-results (pre-open - read a few bits of feedback)
Titlepocolypse
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/titlepocalypse/417472/
New Title tag system is dyanamic and responsive, says Google’s Danny Sullivan
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-page-title-update-is-dynamic-and-reactive-to-changes/417432/
The Google Link Spam Algorithm finished its scheduled two week rollout two days ago (August 24), two weeks after it was supposed to complete. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-link-spam-update-done-31980.html
Clicks on Email, social media, and paid ads do not have any effect on your website or landing page’s SEO whatsoever. https://www.seroundtable.com/newsletter-email-clicks-seo-google-31987.html
Desktop and Mobile pages don’t need to match, they just have to do the same thing. (16 pages vs. 8 pages as example) https://www.seroundtable.com/google-desktop-mobile-match-fulfill-31971.html
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-performance-report-stuck-31984.html
It’s not you, it’s Goog. Google Search Console was sorta stuck for a couple days. If you see weird data for August 23 and 24, it’s not you it’s Google. According to Google Webmaster Support,
GSC Goes Gaboinki - August 23-24 (Search, Discover)
An internal problem caused a data loss in Search and Discover performance during this period. Users might see a significant data drop in their performance reports during this period. This does not reflect any drop in clicks or impressions for your site, only missing data in Search Console.
Listeners should know, we rewrote the title as applied by Google because we thought ours was more descriptive.
Google Keyword Planner not showing Keywords
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-keyword-planner-tool-no-data-31978.html
(you can export the data to Excel or Google Sheets, even if it doesn’t appear on screen)
Most canonicalise – SEO poll shows 58% of SEOs canonicalise in the case of dupe content. 18% will rewrite everything, 12% will use a noindex, and a further 12% will do something other.
https://www.seroundtable.com/most-seos-canonicalize-their-duplicate-content-issues-31969.html

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Core Update Recovery and Google Spam Update still rolling out

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 16:36:00 +0000

Core Update Recovery – How do you know you’re on the right track?
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-core-update-quality-changes-track-31940.html

Keep Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ – Google Spam Update still rolling out after three weeks
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-link-spam-update-still-rolling-out-31948.html

Google using H1 tag to form title tags
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-header-tags-vs-title-tag-snippet-change-is-not-related-to-passaging-ranking-31954.html

Write content to cover all searcher’s needs
https://www.seroundtable.com/cover-all-your-bases-seo-google-31930.html

Facebook Content Report
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebooks-first-ever-report-on-most-viewed-content/416808/
https://transparency.fb.com/data/widely-viewed-content-report/

The 15 areas of knowledge webmasters must master to be competent SEOs
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-areas-of-knowledge/273873/

Wordfence reports a vunerablilty in SEOPress Plugin
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seopress-vulnerability/416610/

Adobe issues 33 security enhancements to fix cracks in Magento2
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/magento-vulnerabilities/416590/
Commercial Magento Versions that are Affected:
•2.4.2 and earlier versions
•2.4.2-p1 and earlier versions
•2.3.7 and earlier versions
Open Source Magento Versions that are Affected:
•2.4.2-p1 and earlier versions
•2.3.7 and earlier versions

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Google’s new Work at Work or Lose at Home Pay Scale

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:23:00 +0000

Maximize Discover results with the Max Image Preview tag.https://www.searchenginejournal.com/increase-google-traffic-with-max-image-preview-tag/416123/

Explaining Google’s new Work at Work or Lose at Home Pay Scale Plans
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pay-cut-google-employees-home-100348715.html

In which Google gives three options on audit plans for Core Web Vitals. (First they say it’s a thing and they say it’s not such a thing and then they say it’s much more than that and then they say... . I think it’s more than that)
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-recommends-this-core-web-vitals-audit-workflow/416132/#close

Wix beats WordPress in CWV competition
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-vs-wix-core-web-vitals/416029/

Kris Jones with Six Ways to Optimize User Review Pages for Google
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/product-review-page-seo/414409/

Roger Montti covers Cumulative Layout Shift
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/core-web-vitals/cumulative-layout-shift/

Google continues to move sites into Mobile First Indexing. (Not a big deal but sort of surprising. Thought they finished this in the spring after pushing back from last autumn)
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-first-indexing-not-done-31904.html

Google and Authorship, a strange relationship
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-spam-author-url-31913.html
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-author-article-31889.html

Yahoo Sign Begowned from Sunnyvale
https://www.seroundtable.com/photos/yahoo-sign-taken-down-from-headquarters-31882.html

Martin Splitt reminds SEOs that Alt Text is important for SEO.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-alt-text-important-seo-31872.html

Google Enforcing Business Address on some GMB listings as means of spam protection
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-my-business-physical-addresses-31891.htm

Google Drops Safe Browsing as a ranking signal
https://searchengineland.com/google-drops-safe-browsing-as-a-page-experience-ranking-signal-350995

Structured Data test tool gone -> Landing page directs users to Google Rich Results tool or to Schema.org tool.
https://searchengineland.com/googles-legacy-structured-data-testing-tool-now-is-gone-351128

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Google Says If You Remove A Part Of Your Site, The Site Will Rank Differently

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 15:25:00 +0000

Google: If You Remove A Part Of Your Site, The Site Will Rank Differently
https://www.seroundtable.com/remove-part-of-site-google-seo-31854.html
User Queries Help Google Determine What To Show In Knowledge Panels
https://www.seroundtable.com/queries-google-knowledge-panels-31869.html
Make Every feature Binary: A 135B parameter sparse neural network for massively improved search relevance
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/make-every-feature-binary-a-135b-parameter-sparse-neural-network-for-massively-improved-search-relevance/
Data: Most Popular Google Search Features Are People Also Ask & Local Pack
https://www.seroundtable.com/popular-google-search-features-31867.html
Google: You May Get Some Ranking Benefit If Someone Steals Your Original Images
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-stolen-images-benefit-31846.html

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How Google compiles results by having elements of search “bid” for placement

Fri, 30 Jul 2021 02:52:00 +0000

Webcology – July 29, 2021

We have another sad announcement to start the show with this week. Erik Stafford, the witty and well loved Creative Director at aimClear passed away last night. He had a heart attack two months short of his 48th birthday. If you grew up in Chicago in the 80s and 90s, you might have known him as the guerilla street artist, GEAR. Eric was a frequent writer and conference speaker. He was a father of two children and passed way too young. Erik D. Stafford, rest in peace, you’re going to be missed.

--
https://searchengineland.com/googles-universal-search-results-bid-for-placement-and-may-be-influenced-by-clicks-350858?utm_source=webcology
https://searchengineland.com/googles-universal-search-results-bid-for-placement-and-may-be-influenced-by-clicks-350858?utm_source=webcology
Yo Dawg, I hear you like search engines so Google built a search engine full of search engines that all flow to a master search engines to figure out which result set is more relevant than the others. But, uhhh, what would ya tell me if I told you it was influenced by clicks?
Gary Illyes’ on how Google compiles results by having elements of search “bid” for placement against each other. Barry explains it well in today’s SEL.
--
Google Link Spam Update ran on Monday
https://www.seroundtable.com/quiet-google-link-spam-update-31836.html
From jim hedger to Everyone: 02:06 PM
--
Nofollows are universal signals in places you’d think a nofollow should go. You don’t need to specify why. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-switch-rel-nofollow-to-rel-sponsored-31830.html
--
https://www.seroundtable.com/edge-of-google-quality-threshold-31832.html
The Quality Threshold Cliff – Falling off but reappearing through manual submission is apparently a clue that you’re about to fall off. Confused?
--
Google Page Experience – This update replaced what was the Google speed update. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-update-replaced-speed-update-31817.html
--
Both Google and Facebook will require staff to be fully vaccinated before returning to work at all US offices. Google has also pushed back its reopening to October. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/1021798222/google-mandates-vaccines-for-workers-pushes-back-return-to-office-date
Other firms like Microsoft have not made vaccines mandatory for employees but all are strongly recommending staff get vaccinated before returning to work.

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Google’s three strikes and you’re out ad policy

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 02:47:00 +0000

SEO Bob Gladstein – died last Friday at age 57.
https://www.seroundtable.com/bob-gladstein-rip-31788.html
Bob was one of the originals. He’s one of the guys who taught second gen superstars like Aaron Wall and Rand Fishkin. He was QWERTY in the early community spaces like Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Forums or the IHelpYou community. On Twitter he was @bubba_ji.

His employer, Overdrive Interactive suggested honouring Bob with donations to the Mass SPCA in his name: @MspcaAngell – a renowned leader in animal protection and veterinary medicine.

Google Tells You Why...
https://searchengineland.com/google-now-shows-why-it-ranked-a-specific-search-result-350659

Consider your Redirects solid after a year has passed
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-redirect-signals-stick-year-31797.html
Slight differences in how 301 and 302s are treated by Google. 302s eventually become treated like 301s but you’ll get a better bang for buck by using correct one at correct time.

Deal Page or Site? Google just published a Best Practices Guide
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-seo-best-practices-for-deal-pages-31795.html
-Read top few
-More to come? – e.g. Back in October 2020, Google created a best practices guide for Black Friday promotions.

Search Traffic Drop visualizations
What different patterns might mean and how to diagnose and deal with them (simplified)
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/07/search-traffic-drops

Google’s three strikes and you’re out ad policy
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-three-strikes-and-your-out-policy-31784.html
(X) Warning: First instance of ad content violating our Enabling Dishonest Behavior, Unapproved Substances and Dangerous Products or Services policies. No penalties beyond the removal of the relevant ads.
(1) First strike: Violation of the same policy for which you’ve received a warning within 90 days. The account will be placed on a temporary hold for three days, during which ads will not be eligible to run
(2) Second strike: Violation of the same policy for which you’ve received a first strike within 90 days of the first strike. The account will be placed on a temporary hold for seven days, during which ads will not be eligible to run. This will serve as the last and final notice for the advertiser to avoid account suspension
(3) Third strike: Violation of the same policy for which you’ve received a second strike within 90 days of the second strike. Account suspension for repeat violation of our policies.
Strikes expire (or get renewed) after 90 days. If you’ve cleaned up and have no new issues, consider yourself in good standing. The plate’s clean.
The Forced Acceptance – G4 is the new Default
Luckily Brie E Anderson from SEJ is there with, 7 GA4 Features that Make it Worth Trying Out
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/useful-google-analytics-4-features/413920/?ver=413920X3

Mueller on how long it takes to rerank a rehabbed site
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-long-to-rerank-website/414181/

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July 2021 Google Core Update is over

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 02:40:00 +0000

July 2021 Core Update is over
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-july-2021-core-algorithm-update/413204/
seroundtable.com/google-local-core-update-31739.html

Yandex SEO Comrad
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yandex-seo-guide/252885/

Google hit by fine by French Government
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-fined-e500-million-for-french-news-negotiation-breach/413436/

News Corp Website set up as reaction to Google./Facebook deal in Aus. Fails
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/news-site-created-to-oppose-google-and-facebook-fails/413326/

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Brand SERP optimisation and knowledge panel management with Jason Barnard

Thu, 01 Jul 2021 17:14:00 +0000

Brand SERP optimisation and knowledge panel management with Jason Barnard

This is a day of reflection and contemplation in Canada. Please take care wishing us a "happy Canada Day". Many Canadians are thinking about the buried history of cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing that made Canada. This month Canadians have been reminded of the tens of thousands of children of First Nations who died in residential schools run by religious orders after being stolen from their parents and families in a bid to destroy their cultures. Over 1300 unmarked graves have recently been discovered at three different sites with tens of thousands more remaining to be found.

We still love our country, we just can't rest on the false histories or hide behind empty nationalism any longer. To grow into the people we aspire to be, we need to honestly and truthfully tell the stories of how we got here. Canada is built on an ongoing genocide. We want to be better.
2 deaths in our community to report
Russ Jones, Data scientists, conference speaker, father of three. Chief data scientist at Moz frim 2015 – 2020. Was CTO of Virante (now Hive Digital) before that. Well loved speaker and friend. Died in his sleep just short of his 40th birthday.
Dan Bell

Google Core Update
CWV Update
Spam Update
Google Core update just started running this morning

Jason Barnard specialises in Brand SERP optimisation and knowledge panel management.
He’s also variously been a musician, a screenwriter, a songwriter and a cartoon blue dog.

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Google puts all its policies on one page

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 17:08:00 +0000

Google puts all its policies on one page.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-content-policies-31648.html (list of all it covers)
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/10622781

Spam Updates – Spam Algo update ran yesterday, another scheduled for next month.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-spam-algorithm-update-june-23rd-31649.html

Algo Updates don’t affect direct traffic
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-updates-direct-traffic-impact-31647.html

Quality takes time for Google to appreciate
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-quality-changes-several-months-31633.html

Google delays discontinuation of third party cookies/data privacy sandbox until sometime in late 2022 to mid-2023.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-extends-support-for-3rd-party-cookies/411596/

Google to keep public updated at https://privacysandbox.com/

Dave’s Disappointment with GA4
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-analytics-4-backlash/411392/

Facebook introduces new ecomm features
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-launches-4-new-ecommerce-features/411350/

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Google Page Experience update is slowly rolling out

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 11:39:00 +0000

Google Page Experience update is slowly rolling out. Will ratchet it up between now and end of August. https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/04/more-details-page-experience

June 2021 Core Update v1 done. July 2021 Core Update V1.5 still to come

Google serves 48% of all ad traffic on “fake” news sites - researchers Lia Bozarth and Ceren Budak at the University of Michigan School of Information
https://searchengineland.com/new-research-shows-google-serves-almost-half-of-all-ad-traffic-on-fake-news-sites-349702

Google tests article carousal for some US based authors in limited mobile rollout.
Evidence of usefulness for EAT? Not really but maybe a step towards...
https://searchengineland.com/google-tests-article-carousel-for-some-author-knowledge-panels-349678

SEL’s SEO periodic table 2021 edition is up

Ain’t no trick to it, just make good sites with good content.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trick-search-31612.html

Site quality can be a metric for individual pages. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-quality-site-level-signal-31596.html

Search Console Insights – All the Good News that Googly enough to share
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-introduces-search-console-insights/410570/

Google My Business makes it easier to mind your business
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-adds-more-ways-to-edit-business-profiles-in-search/410857/
“Google now has more ways for businesses to edit the information that appears to searchers without leaving Search or Maps.”
https://searchengineland.com/facebook-testing-virtual-reality-ads-in-oculus-vr-349694?

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June 2021 Core Update and Google Search Central UnConference 2021

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 11:39:00 +0000

June 2021 Core Update:Lots of movement but this is a two part update so... Not really much to say.

Google Search Central UnConference 2021
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-central-unconference-31568.html
•June 21st, 11amET
•Application to attend is necessary, space is limited

Search ain’t Stable Sunshine
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-never-be-stability-in-search-31566.html
“Here's a secret: there will never be stability, unless someone turns off the internet.” John Mueller, 2021

Google working to demote slanderous content
https://searchengineland.com/google-demotes-slanderous-content-in-search-through-its-predatory-sites-algorithms-349449
13:58:47 From jim hedger : Digital Marketers Association Napa Valley Conference

Unique Content above fold

Delete old-Sitemap when done. Keep XML sitemap, just to show them you’re sorta serious

Take care of your bad links. If you get a manual link penalty, Google expects you to do more than just disavow the links. You should document attempts to get them removed and include that documentation in your reinclusion request.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-unnatural-link-manual-actions-clean-31552.html
Google trying to treat nofollow, USG, and sponsored link attributes differently.
"we do try to understand these and try to treat them appropriately so I could imagine in our systems that we might learn over time to treat them slightly differently." Then John added another line to downplay that difference, saying "but in general they're all with the same theme in that you're telling us these are links that are placing because of this reason and Google doesn't need to take them into account." John Mueller

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Crypto-ads are about to be allowed by Google

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 16:43:00 +0000

It’s almost the middle of the year! COVID is almost over in much of the developed world. A summer full of hope and opportunity is almost upon us and what does Google do? It hits us with a double whamy of a Core Update, the June/July 2021 Core Update.

Thanks to Erika Varagouli (who has today’s coolest ever SEO name) SEMRush for naming Webcology the #1 podcast in a strong field to learn from. After who the hell knows how long of doing this show it is good to know we’re still relevant. Get ready for the insufferable to become inescapable. Crypto-ads are about to be allowed by Google https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-allow-cryptocurrency-ads-31529.html To be certified by Google, advertisers will need to:" • Be duly registered with • (a) FinCEN as a Money Services Business and with at least one state as a money transmitter; or • (b) a federal or state chartered bank entity. • Comply with relevant legal requirements, including any local legal requirements, whether at a state or federal level.
https://www.semrush.com/blog/learn-seo/
• Ensure their ads and landing pages comply with all Google Ads policies Negative matching allowed in regex https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-regular-expressions-exclusions-31526.html Cumulative Metrics Shift – CLS Update (Cumulative Layout Shift) updates at Google Search Console https://www.seroundtable.com/cumulative-layout-shift-metric-google-search-console-31520.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-label-31516.html CWV icon? No talk at Google for a while
Google News Transparancy Policy Article Level Google News Factors/Signals Here are the article level specific Google News signals it uses behind its transparency policy. Google said these factors helps Google "consider information that helps users quickly gain context about articles or the journalists covering stories." • Article byline that link to a bio describing the author's credentials and expertise • Article's publishing date (finally!) • Labeling to indicate the article type, for example Opinion or News Site Level Google News Factors/Signals Here are the site wide level Google News signals it uses behind its transparency policy. Google said these factors "helps readers understand a site's purpose, its organizational structure, and the kinds of information they can expect from that site." • Mission statement • Editorial policies and standards
Staff information and bios for both editorial and business staff • Non-generic contact information • Other organizational-level information like owners and/or funding sources (for example, state-sponsorship, relationship to political parties or PACs). Google added: • Google considers different regional and country-level expectations and practices around transparency. This is particularly important in areas with less press freedom where practices like naming a journalist can carry significant risk. • Google looks at a number of inputs and consider a breadth of editorial practices. This helps ensure that distinctive editorial philosophies—for example, publishing pieces without bylines — don't affect the credibility of an otherwise authoritative source. • Google also considers information that is clearly available to users, so that larger, more technically sophisticated sites and smaller sites that use simple text to convey information are on equal footing.

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Google says site owners can measure the quality of their site’s user experience

Thu, 27 May 2021 11:38:00 +0000

Half the URLs Google is now crawling are HTTP/2 which saves a lot of bandwidth. This would affect your crawl budget. “Using stream multiplexing and header compression, the number of connections and the bandwidth have both gone down significantly. These improvements help both our crawling as well as your website serving infrastructure.” – John Mueller at Google I/O
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-crawling-half-of-the-urls-over-http-2-31444.html

MUM – Big BERTa with a lot more input.
Imagine if Google knew what you wanted to wear while hiking Mt. Fuji on Friday May 21. How might it know that? MUM’s the word.
Meanwhile, over at SEJ, Roger Montti points to recent machine intelligence and learning research published by Google. Long Form Answers – making experts out of Dilatants (paper by Google researcher Donald Metler)

Google I/O
Shopping / Shoppify Partnership
Part of this, Google announced a partnership with Shopify. This allows Shopify merchants to simplify the process to feature their products across Google "in just a few clicks," Google said. "Shopify will enable merchants to become discoverable to high-intent consumers across Google Search, Shopping, YouTube, Google Images and more," Google added.

Shopping graph – Looks at a lot more datapoints – looks at the merchant's website, the prices, the reviews, videos and SKU and inventory data, user experiences - plus a lot more

Google Lens - Search photos to see how information from that photo (product, place, thing) might appear in search results.
Google Holographic Calling

Page Experience Ranking coming to Desktop environment
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-update-coming-to-desktop-31439.html

Core Web Vitals URL Grouping
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/grouped-core-web-vitals-scoring/407899/

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Half the URLs Google is now crawling are HTTP/2 which saves a lot of bandwidth

Thu, 20 May 2021 11:39:00 +0000

Google I/O 2021 Preview

Thu, 13 May 2021 11:27:00 +0000

Google I/O runs next Tuesday May 18 – Thursday May 20 – Open to everyone
https://www.seroundtable.com/seo-related-sessions-at-google-i-o-31405.html
https://events.google.com/io/?lng=en
Preparing for page experience ranking
Immersive storytelling on the web
What's new in Search
AMA: Web Vitals

Schema.org markup validator is live
https://www.seroundtable.com/schema-org-markup-validator-now-live-31403.html
Google Scooters – Dave and Mary got em
https://www.seroundtable.com/photos/google-partner-escooters-31390.html
Google My Business now features a Call History feature which when enabled produces a Google phone number that forwards to the business number.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-my-business-call-history-data-31399.html
The Trust Project, not used for search rankings, directly...
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trust-project-31394.html
SEO Automation w/JavaScript
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-automation-with-javascript/406582/?ver=406582X2
H1 headings value and myth and ?
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/h1-headings-for-google/406720/
Ryan Jones answers what to do with old content
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/will-older-outdated-articles-hurt-my-seo/405625/?ver=405625X3
Canadian Search Awards Judging story
https://tv.avclub.com/amazon-promises-they-arent-wasting-that-465-million-on-1846881901?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
$465MM to film a season of LOTR.

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Trump Ban from Facebook Extended

Thu, 06 May 2021 11:27:00 +0000

Trump’s Ban from Facebook continues for at least six more months. Oversight committee asks Facebook to clarify rules in light of how easy it is to pass disinformation and ferment sedition on the platform. The perma-ban from Twitter is, according to Twitter, permanent.

IP detection and content changes might not be penalizable. What was once seen a cloaking might now be up to the perceived intent of the webmaster

https://www.seroundtable.com/ip-content-change-google-penalty-31371.html

We’ll say this slowly, speed is good but it’s not the panacea. It’s more of a tiebreaker, which apparently happens more than you’d think. – Steve.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-talks-hypothetically-about-speed-as-a-ranking-factor-31375.html

Adding images won’t make you rank higher

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-adding-images-rank-higher-search-31362.html

Not using Google Analytics won’t make you rank lower

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-analytics-no-search-penalty-31361.html

Facebook Neighborhoods – Nextdoor Killer

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-neighborhoods/405911/

Jim Boykin scrapes Yahoo Answers! And makes them available to public and publishes y-answers.com

Embedded links in feature snippets was a bug, an error, a mistake, a big nothingburger of nothing to see here. Ooops.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-says-embedded-links-in-featured-snippets-a-bug/405658/

Core Web Vitals and Sponsored Content

Cloudinary at SearchEngineLand and SEMRush at Search Engine Journal

Cyrus Shepard is an SEO, online marketer, content publisher, speaker, and writer. He has several years experience building highly qualified traffic through SEO and content marketing. His experience leading SEO at Moz and teaching others has introduced him to 1000s of top online marketers across the globe.

Here is a recent link building guide that listeners can be pointed to if you'd like: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building.

Moz has been on a link-building building spree. I see you’ve been advertising webinars on link building recently. Domain Authority has been a somewhat controversial topic lately. A certain founder has been found himself in the middle of a bunch of controversy, again.

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Canada’s Bill C10 Described As a Full Blown Assault on Free Expression Online

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 11:25:00 +0000

Canada’s Bill C10 described as a full blown assault on free expression online. What started as a way to ensure Canadian content continued to be shown on Canadian screens has turned into a hybrid monster that has grown bigger than the government grasps. Canada’s government intends to regulate all digital content that emulates broadcast so if it moves or speaks online, the government will have say over its existence online.
https://nationalpost.com/news/full-blown-assault-on-free-expression-inside-the-comprehensive-liberal-bill-to-regulate-the-internet

Brands value DA, a metric that really has no Google value
https://www.seroundtable.com/brand-value-domain-authority-google-does-not-31329.html

How to report issues with Google to Google
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-indexing-issue-reporting-31332.html

Pre-Rendering revealed by martin split – there is a layer above google’s web rendering service that “handles "prioritization, error retry, quality of service guarantees, caching and it also interacts with a crawling subsystem to actually fetch things."
https://www.seroundtable.com/above-the-google-search-web-rendering-service-31323.html

We need to stop quoting zero click studies – Jeff Ferguson Dropped this
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/stop-quoting-zero-click-search-studies/403763/

John Mueller says consistency is everything in SEO

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User Generated Reviews, Trust Seals and New Page Experience Report in Search Console

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 15:54:00 +0000

User Generated Reviews ,Trust Seals and New Page Experience Report in Search Console

User Generated Reviews will likely not fare well. Expert reviews are where it’s at.
https://www.seroundtable.com/user-generate-content-products-reviews-google-31261.html

Trust Seals and marks are not good to EAT
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-trust-seals-e-a-t-31270.html

Do you need to optimize your entire site for a page to rank well?
https://www.seroundtable.com/one-page-whole-site-google-seo-31271.html

New Page Experience Report in Search Console
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-report-in-search-console-31279.html

Page Experience Update delayed until Summer
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-postponed-31278.html

How accurate is the average position in GSC?
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-how-accurate-is-the-average-position-metric/403368/

SEO Side Hustle?
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-john-mueller-nows-the-perfect-time-for-an-seo-side-hustle/403242/

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Google Research Paper Reveals a Shortcoming in Search | Wix and WordPress War

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 16:15:00 +0000

Google Research Paper Reveals a Shortcoming in Search | Wix and WordPress War

Toronto COVID Update

Roger Monti’s piece in SEJ
Google Research Paper Reveals a Shortcoming in Search
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/long-form-question-answering/402519/

Kim Kraus Berg is Back! Usability
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/accessibility-search-human-experience-design/401983/?ver=401983X2

Wix and WordPress War
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wix-and-wordpress-tensions/402358/
Matt Mullenweg – Developer of WordPress
Avishai Abrahami – CEO Wix

Vunerablilites continue to exist in 17 or more Elementor Add-on Plugins for WP
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-elementor-plugin-vulnerabilities/402330/
List of specific plugins in article

Ryan Jones on XML Sitemaps
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-important-are-image-sitemaps/401533/?ver=401533X2

Cumulitive Layout Shift – Roger Monti wrote a nice primer when writing up how Google has changed its scoring system
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-cumulative-layout-shift/402216/

Project Bernanke – Google favours its own ads in Google Display Network
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-project-bernanke-favors-google-over-other-advertisers/402170/
Google was using publisher data to understand what other advertisers were paying and what they would need to pay in order to achieve specific placements and then using that data to model their bids in order to win the auctions most important to them, presumably at the lowest rates possible.

Google Product Review Update
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-product-reviews-update-big-31235.html
HUGE! But beneficial

Google Cache View is an unmaintained legacy feature
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-cache-view-is-an-unmaintained-legacy-feature-31256.html

Core Web Vitals – Big Deal or Big Daddy?

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Google Search Console adds RegEx and other Data Filters

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 16:15:00 +0000

Google Search Console adds RegEx and other Data Filters
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-gains-regular-expressions-more-data-filters-31219.html

Regular Expressions – RegEx (aka: Reginald Xavier)

https://www.seroundtable.com/staging-sites-authenticated-user-passwords-block-google-31209.html
Use a form of user-name / psw authentication as a wall between the web and your staging server.

Yahoo Answers Shutting Down
https://www.seroundtable.com/yahoo-answers-shutting-down-31208.html

We up and moved to Independence (KS). Every one of us.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-my-business-bug-independence-kansas-31200.html

WIX –new acronym for What IS Xhat?
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wix-negative-attack-ads-against-wordpress/401760/

Changing dates (of post) will not affect web rankings
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-john-mueller-changing-dates-on-pages-wont-improve-rankings/401734/

533 Million Users have data stolen from Facebook
Data scraped from Facebook between June 2017 and April 2018 was leaked to a low-level hacking forum on 3rd April 2021.
Account creation data
Date of birth

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EAT Your Money, EAT Your Life | Core Web Vitals FAQ update

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 16:14:00 +0000

EAT Your Money, EAT Your Life | Core Web Vitals FAQ update

Opening Day! The 2021 Baseball season opens today. The Jays play the Yanks – Go Jays Go

EAT Your Money, EAT Your Life,

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-medical-commerce-sites-31181.html

Core Web Vitals FAQ update

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-core-web-vitals-page-experience-faqs-31174.html

First posted in December 2020, Google has updated its FAQ regarding Core Web Vitals

- "our systems will continue to prioritize pages with the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar. A good page experience doesn't override having great, relevant content."

- you do not need to clear all the core web vitals to be eligible in the top stories carousel. "With the upcoming change to Top Stories carousel, all web pages irrespective of their page experience status or Core Web Vitals score are eligible for Top Stories carousel. When the changes go live the compliance with Google News content policies will be the only requirement, and we will use page experience as a ranking signal across all the pages."

- Metrics and Tooling section of article is interesting. Lots of points to talk about.

- Page Experience and Search

- Top Stories carosel

- AMP

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-lets-users-limit-who-can-comment-on-their-posts/401097/

Facebook to allow users to limit who comments on their posts

∙ Control who can comment on their posts

∙ Filter their news feed to see more relevant content

Learn more about why a recommended post is getting shown in their news feed

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Interview with Mike Rhodes – Founder of Websavvy

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 16:13:00 +0000

interview with Mike Rhodes – Founder of Websavvy

Mike Rhodes is a serial entrepreneur. Founder of one of Aus’s largest digital marketing firms, Websavvy, Rhodes had immigrated to Austrailia from the UK and founded and exited three other businesses before founding Websavvy in 2006. He is now a conference speaker, an investor, and a father. He joins us from Melbourne Austrailia.
Ultimate guide to Google Ads – over 100,000 copies sold

Last batch of sites going to mobile first

Rand vs Danny – Zero Click Google Searches.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/zero-click-claims-are-misleading/399940/#close
No links – No visitors.
https://www.seroundtable.com/over-65-of-web-pages-have-no-links-31134.html

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Vulnerabilities everywhere and not a thought to think

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 13:36:00 +0000

Vulnerablities everywhere and not a thought to think
WordPress Eliminator
Microsoft Exchange

Google is looking for your feedback – Gary Illyes wrote on yesterday on Twitter Google was going to redo their Help docs on Robots text and robots tags
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-to-update-robots-txt-robots-tags-help-docs-31102.html
They already added information to the Meta Robots Directive help docs
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-docs-meta-robots-directive-update-31101.html

Will browser extentions hurt Core Web Vitals Scores? – probably but probably not a problem
https://www.seroundtable.com/browser-extensions-google-core-web-vitals-31091.html

Google Pandemic Change predictions
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-predicts-pandemic-changes/399149/

New Search Engine

Is SEO Harder today than 5 years ago
https://www.seroundtable.com/seo-is-harder-31082.html

-- aside comment --> Most of my career experience has been watching Google introduce products designed to disrupt what used to be MS's dominance on the Desktop. Google is now dominant, even in areas beyond search but it has goofed up so many business-fulfillment projects over that time the energy is now moving swiftly away from them. The scope of needs for any given business fulfillment system (including being kinda/sorta data-secure) are so vast very few corporations could even dream of making this kind of software. This is going to force me into the SaaS Office environment. I've been able to resist it until now. I'm also going to have to migrate away from the increasingly useless but always adorable Blackberry device I still use. Apparently MS doesn't like OS/dinosaur. (I once wrote a feature article on the Blackberry keyboard in a 45minute subway ride)

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Covid-19: 1 Year Later | Google’s Algorithmic Stability

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 14:36:00 +0000

Lots of flux in Google’s Algo Stability

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-update-last-night-31067.html

Technically and Practially Indexed

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-technically-vs-practically-indexed-31058.html

The Bureau of Internet Accessablilty says – Stop screwing with headings you screwheads

https://www.boia.org/blog/why-headings-arent-simply-style-elements?fbclid=IwAR3deezOPNO7pVI3JE0a_FiJ4sQpo8PeVUKuFeKjCwkTproEW27ldRVNLTo

Google might have to pay US news publishers

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-may-have-to-negotiate-payment-for-us-news-publishers/398722/

Google has tweaked some structured data requirements in Job Listings and FAQ / Q&A pages

https://searchengineland.com/google-search-console-rich-results-report-updated-346818

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Rich Results Vanishing? Does Google Simply not trust your website?

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:38:00 +0000

Rich Results Vanishing? Does Google Simply not trust your website?
https://www.seroundtable.com/rich-results-site-wide-trust-issue-31024.html?fbclid=IwAR0NdT1scws9RAkUaUdOMWFqVZXGVrpVzt0oPPt65Ltos3B9sAkrvd9XG6w

Google to stop tracking users after it abandons Cookies
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-will-not-track-users-after-replacing-third-party-cookies/397739/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook-auto-publish&fbclid=IwAR2UZLJ13feXDP1MoJErkbgzZMWMOvnFm--5JV6Ut04o-j_GniP0VHUnKu8

AI as ideology rather than technology
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-ai-is-an-ideology-not-a-technology/?fbclid=IwAR1T9T6ZLD9NvOm--BPO4g9H302y3q5lRMeX9-rRJxgeyYyZkA_ovuEQJMY&mbid=social_facebook&utm_brand=wired&utm_campaign=falcon&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook

AI Writes a Stage Play
“Tomáš Studeník, a Czech entrepreneur and AI fan who came up with the idea for the project, notes a particular scene where a boy asks the robot to tell him a joke. The robot says that when the boy gets old and dies, and the boy’s children and grandchildren are also dead, he, the robot, will still be around.”
“In one of the scenes, an initial prompt about euthanasia ended up in a fight between characters about who had whose finger in whose anus.”

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/kinky-and-absurd-first-ai-written-play-isn-t-shakespeare-it-has-its-moments?fbclid=IwAR1XgGKlPZpWN2APvRkI0_wMXDvqT17PFjVZ2iLwtZOzUXKYHx6dicav6d8

David Harry’s Birthday

Nice Shout-out from Rhea Drysdale about the small part Webcology played in saving the industry from having the term SEO patented by a bad person.

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Aussie Journalists Get Help From Facebook and Google

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 14:38:00 +0000

Aussie Journalists Get Help From Facebook and Google
Facebook agrees to Aussie journalism fund
Google already agreed to pay Australian journalists through its News Showcase program
Critics argue the agreement sets the bar for compensation too high with companies elegiable under Australian legislation needing to earn more than $150,000AUD in annual income.

Page Experience update will not be overwhelming, according to Google spokeperson Danny Sullivan.
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-page-experience-update-massive-change-30992.html

Total number of links is irrelevant
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-total-number-of-links-irrelevant-30971.html

Long title tags have benefit
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-longer-title-tags-seo-30985.html

Google doesn’t talk about depreciated ranking signals
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-on-deprecating-ranking-signals-30991.html

Decline in Featured Snippets (just as Passages indexing takes off)
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-showing-fewer-featured-snippets-30987.html

March 2021 Google Moblie First Deadline approaches
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-mobile-first-indexing-deadline-march-2021-30974.html

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The Boney M Rasputin TikTok Challenge and Texas is Snowed In

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 14:37:00 +0000

Texas
How to help
How to survive
No Aussie News on Facebook isn’t Google News for Aussies
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-removes-australian-news/396312/

The Boney M Rasputin TikTok Challenge

YouTube explores new ways for creators to make money on its platform
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-is-adding-new-ways-for-creators-to-make-money/396423/

Developers rejoice – Google has changed Core Web Vital Metrics a bit
https://searchengineland.com/google-updated-metric-boundaries-for-core-web-vitals-in-search-console-346227
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-core-web-vitals-boundaries-new-30949.html

Wix vs. WordPress – Meuller says, “Fix your content problems”
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wix-vs-wordpress-john-mueller/396385/

Google can process javascript redirects but other search engines might not be able
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-javascript-redirects-search-engines-30950.html
(302 redirects – useful until removed but still should indicate temporary. You know what? Use a 301 when you can)

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Interview with Michelle Stinson Ross – Marketing Director at Mindful Abby

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 14:37:00 +0000

Michelle Stinson Ross – Marketing Director at Mindful Abby, a mental health focused startup. Michelle is one of the go-to social media experts in the industry.

Google Goes Dark Mode
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-dark-mode-theme-controls-30907.html
Harder to see paid ads
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-dark-mode-google-search-ads-30913.html

Google Phrase Match expands to cover Broad Match Modifiers
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ads-phrase-match-expands-to-broad-match-modifier-30880.html

Google still prefers to neutralize effect of SPAM rather than remove a URL from listings
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-neutralize-search-spam-30903.html

Guttenberg upgrade delivered site performance upgrades for WPRocket website redeisgn
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wp-rocket-gutenberg-redesign/395696/

Danny Goodwin had a daughter

SMX Create looking for Speakers
https://searchengineland.com/pitch-to-speak-at-smx-create-345968

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AI and Google Ads Auto-Applied Recommendations and Internet Marketing Ninja Jim Boykin

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 20:46:00 +0000

AI and Google Ads Auto-Applied Recommendations
https://searchengineland.com/tactical-advice-on-google-ads-auto-applied-recommendations-control-center-345740
About this Result
https://www.seroundtable.com/wikipedia-gatekeeping-about-this-result-google-30872.html
The Google Experience Trust Mark
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-experience-update-label-all-factors-complaint-30870.html
Core Web Vitals + Mobile friendly, Safe browsing, https, and no interstitials = good chance of a good experience mark

Google to start suspending sites that are less than honest about their pricing. “Google wrote "beginning April 6, in addition to reviewing and enforcing price accuracy between your Merchant Center product data and your landing pages, we will begin to review and enforce price accuracy at checkout." If the price is higher on the checkout page, Google said "you will receive a 28-day warning to resolve these mismatches, otherwise your account will be subject to suspension at the end of the warning period."
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-merchants-checkout-price-enforcement-30873.html
Dave differentiates between BERT and SMYTHE.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/smith-bert-smith-and-bert-in-search/394923/?ver=394923X3
Google Analytics no longer collecting data from YouTube Channel pages. Far more complete information in YouTube Studio
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-analytics-stops-collecting-data-from-youtube-channels/395001/

Situation with Austrailia and Google is serious and could have serious implications for other businesses
https://searchengineland.com/australias-showdown-with-google-has-profound-implications-for-domestic-businesses-and-other-digital-platforms-345818

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An It was the Worst of Times edition. Remembering Hamlet Batista

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 16:42:00 +0000

Webcology – January 28, 2021 – An It was the Worst of Times edition.
Hamlet
A sad story started spreading through the SEO community last night as word of Hamlet Batista’s passing emerged through Facebook and Twitter. A small number of people close to him knew he was sick for several weeks but Hamlet wanted to keep it quiet. He had somehow contracted COVID after doing everything he could to avoid it. He was hit hard but rallied a couple time and thought he’d make it through.
Hamlet came to the United States from the Dominican Republic on a US Genius Visa and he used his genius to build a beautiful life. He was a healthy and happy and kind sort of man. He had a wife, Odette, and two sons, Ethan and Josh. His SEO tool company, RankSense, was working towards its first stock offering. Hamlet was literally living the dream, making it happen for himself and others around him from hard work and because he was a truly good person.
That goodness was felt in the industry. Hamlet was a well known in the search marketing sector for sharing knowledge in industry journals and as a speaker and lecturer on the search marketing conference circuit. He was one of those people who took others under his wings to help them find their feet as they stepped forward in their careers. Most of his mentees are themselves notable and successful. Hamlet had a way of making people find the best in themselves.
The SEO community has gone into mourning a few times in our history and it’s always so hard. There is a love among our clique and when someone who so totally personified that spirit passes it is stunning and awful how deep the loss is felt. Goodbye Hamlet. You, my friend, were deeply loved. You changed people’s worlds and you will be sorely missed.

The Rebellion called GameStop
Robinhood has banned lil’John, FrierDuck, tittes2020, and a huge host of other day traders from trading in certain stocks being pumped on Reddit and through social media.
Google Ranks pages but strongly considers websites
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-site-score-ranking-individual-pages-30829.html
(in response to Jeff Fergeson’s piece in SEJ: Google ranks webpages not websites https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-ranks-webpages-not-websites/393425/?ver=393425X3)

Google Search Console sends out erroneous verification emails
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-console-email-mistake-30834.html

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Old Disavow Tools is gone, replaced by the Disavow Links List.

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 20:44:00 +0000

Old Disavow Tools is gone, replaced by the Disavow Links List. Apparently it does the same thing but speculation suggests it might rat out sketch sites.

https://www.seroundtable.com/old-google-disavow-tool-shut-down-30759.html

Don’t pay bloggers to write for dofollow backlinks. Pay writers to write. Google!!! https://www.seroundtable.com/bloggers-dofollow-backlinks-google-guidelines-30771.html

Google Search Indexing Tiers – Some documents stored on more expensive servers than others. Items that will be pulled or surfaced more frequently, for instance.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-indexing-tiers-30784.html

Google continues to insert links to 3rd party websites in featured snippets clipped from other websites. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-continues-featured-snippets-supplemental-links-30788.html

DuckDuckGo flies above 100million searches per day

https://searchengineland.com/duckduckgos-focus-on-privacy-minded-users-pushes-it-past-100-million-searches-in-a-single-day-345462

New crawl stats shows more crawls – Just a reporting change

https://searchengineland.com/google-crawl-stats-report-now-showing-more-crawls-345452

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WordPress now offers Website Development

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 20:41:00 +0000

WordPress now offers Website Development
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/built-by-wordpress/392315/#close
Automattica is the business arm of WordPress, the one that runs WordPress.com, WooCommerce, JetPack, Gavatar, and Akismet. Will introduce web development business with site prices starting at $4900. Matt Mullenweg suggests the move targets Wix and Squarespace rather than traditional website designers.

Googlebot now crawling HTTP / 2 – also known as H2, btw...
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-notifications-http-2-googlebot-crawling/392439/
http 2 is a new hypertext transfer protocol that speeds communication and data transfer between browsers, servers, and various bots. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP/2)

Google Search Console adds report for News publishers
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-adds-report-for-news-publishers/392287/

Selling Domains based on SEO Value – Google says, “that’s silly”
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-on-selling-domains-based-on-seo-value-30756.html
I bid ... them good luck. Selling a domain based on the "SEO footprint" sounds a bit like selling a car based on the topped-up gas tank. John Mueller, Jan 9, 2020

Smith is not live
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-smith-algorithm-is-not-live-30747.html
Siamese Multi-depth Transformer-based Hierarchical (SMITH) Encoder. – it’s a research paper rather than a part of or filter to the algorithm

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America remains in place. A new decade begins now.

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 20:40:00 +0000

Welcome to Webcology on WMR.FM, the post-revolution edition. I call it that because something remarkable has happened in a horrible but less than disastrous way. The revolution has ended and, after four years of division, lies, distortions and horrible economics, the revolution has clearly failed. The fascists lost and, though they took the country to the brink of collapse, the traditions, institutions, and better sense of the American people held. No one doubts that those foundations stand firmly today even after the very Halls of Congress were rocked by the violent sedition of the President’s supporters yesterday in a last ditch attempt to prevent the certification of President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris. Congress reconvened to complete its duty and certify the results of the election after the Trumpist terrorists had been arrested or routed from the building by the Capitol police, reinforced by the DC, Maryland, and Virginia National Guards. Mark that as the moment in time the Trumpian Revolution ended.
Donald J. Trump leaves office having destroyed the Republican Party and having squandered and lost GOP control of all houses of legislative government, the Oval Office, the House, and the Senate. Even his handpicked judicial appointments failed to break with American law when he asked them to do his bidding. After the results of a national election, 62 friviolous and failed lawsuits, the two run-off Senate races in Georgia, the failed attempt to take the very House of Government Washington DC, and the final confirmation of Biden and Harris, Donald J. Trump finally assured America that there would be a transfer of power on January 20, 2021. He conceded that it’s over and, even if he can’t concede that he lost, he’s lost and so is the movement he flounded. The fascist revolution is over and the Republic of the United States of America remains in place. A new decade begins now. Friends, welcome to 2021.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-new-robots-txt-tester-tool-30718.html
Google works on Robots.TXT tool improvements

Carolyn Lyden – content editor at Search Engine Land and SMX
https://www.seroundtable.com/carolyn-lyden-joins-search-engine-land-smx-30716.html
Miranda Miller – Search Engine Journal

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-smith-algorithm/391929/#close
SMITH better than BERT

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Chris Brogan Media

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 05:00:18 +0000

Chris Brogan is president of Chris Brogan Media, offering business storytelling and marketing advisory help for mid to larger-sized companies. Chris is a sought after keynote speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of nine books and counting. He’s working on his tenth: title forthcoming.

Chris has spoken for or consulted with the biggest brands you know, including Disney, Coke, Google, GM, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker, Titleist, Scotts, Humana Health, Cisco, Sony USA, and many more. He’s appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, interviewed Richard Branson for a cover story for Success magazine, and once even presented to a Princess. People like Paulo Coelho, Harvey Mackay, and Steven Pressfield enjoy sharing their projects and best ideas with Chris because they know he’ll share them with you. Tony Robbins had Chris on his Internet Money Masters series. Forbes listed Chris as one of the Must Follow Marketing Minds of 2014, plus listed his website as one of the 100 best websites for entrepreneurs. Statsocial rated Chris the #3 power influencer online.

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Daniel Faggella Of Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 05:00:06 +0000

Daniel Faggella is the founder of Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research and is best known for being an unbiased voice covering the applications and implications or artificial intelligence in industry and society.

Founder and Head of Research at Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research, Daniel Faggella is an internationally recognized speaker on the use-cases and ROI of artificial intelligence in business.

Emerj tracks and maps what’s possible and what’s working in artificial intelligence in order to help leaders develop winning AI strategies. Emerj’s AI Opportunity Landscapes are the industry benchmark of artificial intelligence ROI across sectors.

Daniel is regularly called upon by global enterprises in financial services and security and has spoken for many of the largest and most reputable organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations, the OECD, INTERPOL, and more.

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Last episode of 2020

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 21:51:50 +0000

Last episode of 2020 and throughout the show our spirits were flying through COVID’s dark glow. The stories were loaded, all devil may care in hopes something useful was there to be shared. With thoughts of old Chicago all snug in our heads we just want to put a craptastic year to bed. Because exhaustion and distraction get nothing good done and perpetual lockdowns are not very fun. And Google is giving like Krumpus again and taking the tools that help make it rain. And in all of our real worlds we see so much sadness such hardship and losses and self-driven madness. This Christmas, this Hanukkah, this holiday space is set of stressful options and there’s no way to make right choices your people will happily take yet the cost of that dinner may be far too great. Last episode of 2020 and throughout the show our spirits were flying through COVID’s dark glow.

Our first two stories this week are tragedies. Bill Slawski had a stroke last weekend. He is cognizant, able to read, write, and speak, but he’ll need to relearn a number of physical skills. Another of our family, EB has lost two children in as many months. We’re reminded of all the children and parents and loved ones who are, so suddenly, just gone. 2020 was a rough and terrible year. Take stock and make sure your loved ones know that you love them.

Barry Schwartz has set up a website so people can send messages to Bill at BillSlawski.com/. Listeners who know Bill, or who understand the significance of the impact he’s had on the industry are encouraged to share a story about Bill there.

The stories we covered this week:
Monday’s Google outage affected nearly every major Google service. The following services were affected.

· Google Ads
· Google AdSense
· Google Analytics
· Google Search Console
· Google My Business
· YouTube
· Google Play
· Firebase
· Gmail
· Google Apps/Workforce
· Admob

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Top-Trending 2020 YouTube Videos Demonstrate Longer Is Stronger

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 18:05:00 +0000

Top-Trending 2020 YouTube Videos Demonstrate Longer Is Stronger | These 10 videos made it to the top this 2020. Get insights on video length and strategies to help you make better content. Google Transparency Core Updates
Greg Sterling leaving Third Door Media and Search Engine Land
Google December 2020 Core Update still rolling out
US Government moves to break up Facebook
Rural Broadband is available via SpaceX with a nearly $1Billion subsidy from the US Federal Communications Commission in a bid to push broadband access to all Americans in the next ten years.
Former Salesforce, Richard Socher, to start a new search engine to compete with Google at You.com/. Signups are being accepted but that puts you on a waitlist. Apparently, you can move up the list by filling in a survey and inviting other users to you.com/.
SMX is on!
Google to look into the dismissal of AI expert Timnit Gebru.

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Webcology 12/8/20

Tue, 08 Dec 2020 20:43:00 +0000

A new episode

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Webcology 12/3/20

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 20:39:00 +0000

A new episode

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Happy Thanksgiving episode, one day early.

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 20:35:30 +0000

Happy Birthday, Brasco! It’s the 45th birthday of Jorge Brasco Hermida, WMR.FM and CannabisRadio producer extraordinaire! In fact, today should be a commemorative day in tech history. Sad news. The Hand of God reaches out for Diego Maradona, dead at age 60. Jim and Dave covered ideas for small businesses to improve their holiday search marketing as quickly and efficiently as possible.

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GWC is now GSC

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 17:54:00 +0000

GWC is now GSC but not the GSC you’ve come to know and love? WTF? That used to be GWT. Confused, you won’t be after this episode of Webcology, or SOAP, it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.

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Home Page Outranking Internal Pages For Deeper Keywords

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 17:50:00 +0000

Google: Home Page Outranking Internal Pages For Deeper Keywords

How Google Chooses Canonical Page | Google's Gary Illyes shares details of signals and weightings used for identifying canonical page and duplicates.

Most SEOs Use Few SEO Tools & Don't Spend Much On Them.

Google – Code Push to get stuff published.

SEO Tools left sitting in the chest.

Dupe and Canonicalization.

And Google Deeprank is BERT.

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Webcology 10/29/20

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 19:38:00 +0000

A new episode

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Navah Hopkins, Director of Paid Media

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 16:46:00 +0000

Navah Hopkins is the Director of Paid Media at Hennessey Digital to chat about what's going on in the paid world. Navah Hopkins is the Director of Paid Media at Hennessey Digital, an integrated digital marketing agency helping our customers own their markets via PPC, SEO, CRO, PR, and Content. A veteran of the digital marketing industry, she began as an SEO in 2008, transitioning to PPC in 2012. She manages the strategy and execution of paid media, as well as leading a team of paid search and paid social champions. Throughout her career, Navah has made a point to give back and loves sharing lessons learned on the international speaking circuit as well as local universities. She is a frequent contributor to SEJ, SEMrush, and WordStream blogs/webinars. In 2019, she became a founding member of the Paid Search Association, a group dedicated to empowering the next generation of PPC practitioners, as well as serving as a resource for all practitioners to learn from and share with the community.

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Robert Nickell, Founder and CEO of Rocket Station

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:44:00 +0000

Robert Nickell, Founder, and CEO of Rocket Station joins Jim and Dave to chat Virtual Assistants and use them to enhance SEO. Robert Nickell is the Founder and CEO of Rocket Station, the leading provider of outsourced staffing and process management for the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Operating in Dallas Ft Worth since 2013, Rocket Station helps small to mid-sized businesses hire virtual teams with efficiency and profitability. Simplified staffing allows operators to focus on core competencies and outsource the rest. Robert started his career as an entrepreneur in real estate industry which has positioned him to support many real estate entrepreneurs and established firms who are struggling with staffing and human resources. Robert and his team’s strength in evaluating best practices and efficient ways to staff capacity have continued to propel Rocket Station. When not helping clients build better businesses, you’ll find Robert traveling the world or hanging out with his nephews in Dallas.

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Facebook – Qanon = ?

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 16:40:00 +0000

In a priority of problems... Google tells us their canonicalization bug and mobile-indexing problems
SEOs self-diagnose gender, racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation-based bias as a problem in the wider industry.
According to an exhaustive report issued yesterday by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook wield monopoly power over their respective markets.
Remake those slides and rewrite those PPTs, Bing has rebranded as Microsoft Bing and has a new logo to prove it.
Chuck Price on Google Trends

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September 24, 2020 - COVID Week 29

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

The COVID crisis has lasted six months and a week and maybe more and Jim says he’s starting to lose it as both his and Dave’s regions enter a distinct second wave of the virus. The conversation strays around the news of the week with a constant loop back to planning for a future with fewer in person gatherings and retail opportunities. Going into a new growth phase of the disease is frightening but at least planning for and communicating about online businesses is getting easier.

Google introduces new schema mark-up language allowing online retailers to provide shipping information. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shipping-details-schema-30156.html

Barry Schwartz and Martin Splitt exchange interviews for their respective VLOGs late last year. The collaborative interviews revealed a lot about how Googlers feel about SEOs as persons and as practitioners. Dave and Jim talk about some of the SEO Myths Martin addresses in the interviews. https://www.seroundtable.com/vlog-086-30105.html

Microsoft leaked about 5.6Billion terabyes of search data after leaving a server open and unprotected from September 10 - 16. https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/23/microsoft_leaks_over_65tb_bing/

Did Google drop hints it is compiling authority profiles? A post by Danny Sullivan appears to suggest it does. There’s a lot of conversation about it in the SEO community. https://searchengineland.com/did-google-just-hint-at-an-authority-profile-340815

LinkedIn is pulling a professional Facebook with a redesign. Jim and Dave wish it luck, hope it doesn’t suck, and genuinely hope it remains a place businesses can talk to and research each other while other people can use it for employment spam as long as it doesn’t actually become Facebook.

Lastly, Google alters text in guidence to confirm good reviews bring good rankings. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-how-reviews-impact-local-rankings-change-30158.html

Be good, don’t touch your face, for goodness sake wear a mask, stop the spread, wash your hands, be kind to each other, rank well, we’ll talk with you next week.

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September 17, 2020 - COVID Week 28

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

It’s about six months even in the ongoing COVID crisis and we’re starting to see numbers crawl upwards in central and western Canada again. Transmission appears out of control in the United States though some states appear to have a handle on it.

It was a busy week in search with a lot of items to cover.

Google has shown such volatility various forecasting tools are constantly suggesting a Google Update is underway. Jim and Dave talk about the idea this is just the way Google is supposed to operate after a major update takes place. Jim is of the opinion Google is sorting things out as its engineers make a larger number of tweeks to the algorithms than they normally do as affects of the previous core-updates are understood. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-ranking-volatility-continues-30128.html

A few housekeeping news items

Affiliate links are mostly treated as nofollows https://www.seroundtable.com/google-affiliate-links-nofollow-links-30124.html

Manual penalties have long term consequences. Don’t expect to clean your way back into Google’s good graces quickly if your history says you’re likely to mess about again. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-dont-expect-same-rankings-after-manual-action-recovery/380948/

Webmasters should view Core Vitals as reported in Google Search Console as low hanging fruit in their bids to build better and more useful websites. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-speed-is-complex-to-measure-30123.html

The Crawl Anomaly report in Google Search Console’s Page Performance metrics will be replaced by something that might actually be useful for webmasters. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-remove-crawl-anomaly-data-30117.html

Winston Burton has written what Dave refers to as “the best primer on machine learning” at Search Engine Journal. It’s on the SEO Required Reading list. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/machine-learning-seo/208415/

Lastly, Adam Reimer has written a document on how to deal with temperamental SEOs on your staff. We love Adam but we also love being that temperamental SEO. It’s a good piece but... side-eye or something. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/work-with-seo-guru/373894/

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COVID Week 27 - Google Said What?

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 13:41:59 +0000

Google says a lot of things. Sometimes the search engine’s spokespersons are incredibly transparent and sometimes they’re bizarrely opaque. Sometimes they contradict each other and sometimes the effects of technologies being innovated on the far side of the Googleplex aren’t as well known by their spokespersons around the world. Today Jim and Dave discuss a number of things Google’s said in the last week that directly contradict things they told webmasters previously, focusing on core-update recoveries and the importance of core web vitals as potential or future ranking signals. We also talk about a terrible case of negative SEO, the Change.org petition for Google to restore hidden search term data for SEMs, and congratulate John Mueller for being named Search Personality of the Year. We also noted the panel hosted by Ginny Marvin, “The SEO Gender Gap and How to Close It”, being held online, Sept. 11, 2020.

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COVID Week 25 - Jeff Ferguson and the Lil’ Studies that Couldn’t.

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:51:30 +0000

It's been about six weeks since Jeff published a Search Engine Journal article (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/math-decode-google-algorithms/374391/) questioning the methods, conclusions, and qualifications of many SEO studies that try to decode Google's algorithms.

Jeff Ferguson, partner at Amplitude Digital, joins Jim and Dave to talk about the statistical science, or lack thereof, behind some of what many might consider foundational studies in the SEO industry.

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August 20, 2020 - COVID Week 24 - Google and SEO News

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 10:34:43 +0000

A general show about SEO and Google news. Dave and Jim talk about Google’s upcoming open virtual conference, announcements Google reps made during the week, the difference in importance between content and links, and weirdness with the newest version of WordPress.

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Webcology 8/13/20

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 19:37:00 +0000

A new episode

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August 6, 2020 - Covid Week 22ish - Rendering and Google and You, or, On How Google Sees Sites

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 20:07:50 +0000

Jim and Dave walk through the weekly news touching on many of the things affecting the search engine world this week. We spend a lot of time talking about how search engines now render pages based on an article Dave wrote in Search Engine Journal with input from a few notable Googlites. We also cover a vulnerability in DIVI WordPress Themes, TikTok as a Greased Up Punching Bag, how four-letter comments can hurt your blog, and how non-ranking factors can cause tiny algorithm adjustments that could affect a website’s placements.

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Webcology 7/30/20

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 19:36:00 +0000

A new episode

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COVID Week 20something - Career Thoughts - The Future is for Dataphiles

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave talk through a weird set of news stories that point to a future in marketing built on writing, crafting, treating, and moving data. It was a strange episode because we meant to cover a series of seemingly unrelated stories without realizing the thread connecting the majority of them was improvements in AI and how big data is changing the careers of search marketing professionals.

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WebmasterT and the Changing Searchscape

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 21:43:59 +0000

One of the originals, Terry Van Horne joins Dave and Jim to talk about both old school and new entity driven SEO. A wide ranging conversation touching on Terry's new podcast with Bill Slawski, the evolution of Google over Terry's career, and how schema and AI are changing the ways Google works.

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Webcology - July 2 - Between the Holidays

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 22:52:22 +0000

Week 18 of the COVID crisis and the world feels like it's trying to find control. This turned out to be a general news show looking at a dozen or so things that happened over the week.

When you've lost Lego, you've lost the moral high ground. Hundreds of brands have vanished from Facebook as the advertising boycott pushes Mark Zuckerberg down to 4th richest person on Earth and driven Facebook to remove items of hate speech and ban several profiles for fostering or promoting hate, violence, or insurrection. Coca Cola joined yesterday.

WWJSD? (What Would John Smith Do)
Googlebot's alter ego, John Smith was seen filling up shopping carts and abandoning them near checkouts at major ecommerce platforms around the Web, just to check the prices of bread. Charges of annoyance and wonked analytics followed.

Bruce Clay's Declaration of SEO

Google treats plural and single versions of words differently.

Do winning websites use plug-ins?

A fun show somewhat beset by bandwidth weirdness

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Webcology - COVID19 - Week13 - Optimizing E-commerce with Khalid Saleh

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 00:49:11 +0000

Today on the show we take a deep dive into optimizing e commerce and much more with our guest Khalid Saleh. Khalid is the co-founder of Invesp, an e commerce optimization company. He has more than 12 years of experience in ecommerce architecture, design and implementation, and is an in-demand speaker at industry events such as Emetrics, SMX, Conversion conference, DMA, PubCon and more

Today we talk about:
- The growth of Snapchats platform and advertising ability
- How Rankings for New Sites Could Fluctuate For Up to a Year
- Google Doubling Down On Guest Blog Links: Nofollow Them
- Facebook removing Trump ad for violating violence policies
Stay safe, respect each other, wash your hands, rank well, don't touch your faces, take care of each other, we'll talk to you next week

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Webcology - COVID19 - Week12

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 16:43:37 +0000

These are extraordinary times. The most important thing is to say something and we say, empathically, BLACK LIVES MATTER. Racism has no place in policing, policy, or in our politics. We are so close to being so much better and we can be better but we have to want to be. Webcology stands for equity, equality, and collective advancement through analysis and understanding.

This was a busy episode. We looked at the protests and politics and the responses of the tech community. We talked about the differences between Twitter and Facebook's reactions to the President, Executive branch, and some GOP senators using their platforms to spread misinformation, hate speech, and threats of violence. We noted statements made by leaders in the tech and SEO community.

We also talked about:
- the SEMRush blog-network link selling controversy, also known as the New Mueller Report
- SEMRush making an outsized contribution to the community organizing some of the best information sessions out there
- Bing WebmasterTools new and vastly improved backlink reporting
- speculate about the beneficial effects of proper Schema markup and the May Core 2020 update
- and we discussed other SEOey stuff.

Stay safe, respect each other, wash your hands, rank well, don't touch your faces, take care of each other, we'll talk to you next week

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Webcology Covid19-week 11, the EO to Spite your Face Edition

Fri, 29 May 2020 16:02:37 +0000

Bennett Kelley from the internet and cyberlaw business report joins Jim and Dave to talk about Trump’s Executive Order attacking social media platforms. Bennett talks about how an Executive Order is introduced, the potential implications of this EO, what it might cover, how it might be litigated in the future, and the issues it might raise for online publishing going forward.

Dave and Jim also covered Google Core Values, the new metric introduced to Google Search Console this week, the upcoming Search Engine Journal E-Summit, Google placing paid advertising in the “Also Searched for” carousal, and observed effects of the recent Core Value update.

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Week 10 of the COVID-19 Pandemic lock down

Thu, 21 May 2020 20:49:17 +0000

Kristine Schachinger sat in this week for Dave who is taking a local staycation. We had another wide ranging conversation covering everything from the Google May Core Update to Twitter’s suggested new policy allowing posters to select who can see or comment on Tweets.

We also talked about the DoorDash - Pizza Arbitrage article that appeared in the economics blog The Margins. A pizza shop owner discovered the delivery service DoorDash had hijacked his pizzeria’s Google My Business listing and was listing a $24 pizza for $16 (while still paying $24 per pizza). DoorDash was trying to build its customer base but was misrepresenting the pizzeria’s prices. Worse yet, its customers were getting their pizzas delivered cold. Several customer complaints later, the pizzeria discovered it could make $8 per “pizza” by ordering their own products and sending themselves empty boxes. Things got especially interesting with Google search liaison Danny Sullivan tried to explain Google’s policies in the comments section. Nothing good ever happens in the contact section...

Check out this episode of Webcology for these and other search related topics.

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Google Core Update And Pinterest Ranking

Thu, 14 May 2020 20:30:41 +0000

Google's John Mueller responded to a tweet asking why Pinterest ranks so well in Google search when the Pinterest pages have little to no textual content on the pages. John Mueller from Google said "sometimes images, even with minimal textual content, can be exactly what people are looking for. Not always, and sometimes we get it wrong, but it's certainly an option." It is hard to analyze a site like this because it covers news and there are many many spikes in traffic. Some spikes are huge and some spikes are small, and because of that, traffic is rarely ever flat for a site like this. This also includes Google organic traffic, because queries spike around news as well. But overall, I think this site's traffic is not doing as well since the May 4th Google May 2020 core update. In a Google hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question about getting hit by the Google BERT update. Mueller discussed what BERT does and how that fits into ranking.

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LinkedIn's Dropped Pages And Google Core Update

Thu, 07 May 2020 20:01:49 +0000

LinkedIn's www.linkedin.com pages dropped out of the Google search results for about 10 hours. But when it came back, it all came back really quickly. The SEO community is asking how did Google reprocess everything so quickly and how did LinkedIn return in Google search so quickly. The easiest way to explain it was that IF (we do not know what LinkedIn did for sure) LinkedIn went into Google Search Console and accidentally requested a removal of the www domain in Google Search, then that doesn't technically remove the pages from Google's index. All it does is flag those pages as to be hidden from showing in the Google Search results. So when you remove the flag to remove these pages, since those pages have never technically been removed from the index, they will pop back in pretty quickly for a search on LinkedIn in Google. Scripts are awesome for many reasons but the business conditions brought on by coronavirus have highlighted one of their most powerful benefits: they can be created cheaply and quickly. So much so that they can be deployed in quick response to unexpected events, even when there’s no expectation they will be useful for a long time. And when it comes to COVID scripts, we all hope those will be irrelevant sooner than later. But until then, they can at least help us get through stressful times with one less thing to worry about.

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Google Meet Free For All

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 18:55:00 +0000

Google Meet, the company’s premium video conferencing product, is now free for anyone who wants to use it. Previously known as ‘Google Hangouts Meet,’ the tool has only been available to G Suite customers until now. Last month, the premium version of Meet was made free to existing G Suite users. People could join a Meet call without paying for the product, but the call still had to be started by someone with a paid G Suite account. That’s changing so everyone can start calls on Meet without having to pay for anything. Google has said this many times, in many different ways, Google does not use Google Analytics for web search. John Mueller of Google said the other day on Twitter that Google does not use Google Analytics for indexing purposes. Google's John Mueller said it would be "extremely rare that Googlebot would submit a form" on your web site. He said Google did this more often in the old days, especially on governmental web sites where there was no site navigation and the only way to get to public content was to use a search box on the site. But nowadays most sites have good navigation through links and it is rare for Google to have to submit forms.

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SERP analysis And Googles Big News

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 23:06:08 +0000

SERP analysis is an essential step in the process of content optimization to outrank the competition on Google. SERP (Search Engine Result Page) analysis is part of keyword research and helps you understand if the query that you identified is relevant for your business goals. More importantly by analyzing how results are organized, we can understand how Google is interpreting a specific query. Google announced some big news - Google Shopping is now free. That means you can add your products for free to the Google Shopping tab in Google Search. Google said, "Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings, helping merchants better connect with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google." If you already pay for your products to show in Google Shopping, Google said: "you don't have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings." But "for new users of Merchant Center, we'll continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months," Google added. Google announced today they will begin requiring documentation of user identity and geographic location for advertisers. The new policy is tied to their 2018 policy update requiring identification verification for political advertisements.

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AI and Daniel Faggella

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 21:04:28 +0000

Jim and Dave welcome Daniel Faggella, the Head of research and CEO of Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research. Called upon by the United Nations, World Bank, INTERPOL, and many global enterprises, Daniel is a globally sought-after expert on the competitive strategy implications of AI for business and government leaders.

He also hosts the AI in Business Podcast where he interviews top AI and machine learning executives, investors, and researchers from globally renowned organizations.

He talks about bringing crucial AI research to investors and law enforcement alike to create essential frameworks – from media formats to regulatory guidelines and gradients of punishment – that deal with the shift in audio and visual contents, from artifacts of real things in the past to tinkered content which can range from simple pranks to "Deepfakes" that can affect stock markets, politics, and global security.

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Consumer Behavior During Covid-19

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 10:10:30 +0000

There is no denying that the global COVID-19 pandemic has, and will continue to have, an incredibly profound impact on life as we know it. In the wake of cascading national lockdowns, people worldwide are depending on digital mediums more than ever to stay connected, communicate critical information, and continue to do business. Today we’re sharing a collection of revelatory, deeply compelling data that tells the tale of what search looks like right now. We’ve uncovered fascinating insights by comparing Yext’s aggregate customer data with third-party data sets — including the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and search interest in “Coronavirus” reported from Google Trends. In light of the rapidly changing events around COVID-19, Google Ads sent an announcement they are suspending the planned changes to their Partners program until 2021. Google has published the first in what will be a series of blog posts dedicated to SEO case studies. The aim of this series is to share success stories that demonstrate the value of SEO. Google says the intended audience for these case studies are people who may need some extra convincing that SEO is a good investment. A new survey validates the importance of maintaining your SEO efforts through the coming downturn. The survey, by Conductor, had 317 respondents drawn from Conductor’s extended network across a range of industries, including B2B (24%), Retail (12%), Healthcare (11%), Media (10%) and others (travel and hospitality, consumer technology, financial services, insurance, automotive, e-commerce, and manufacturing).

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SpecialAnnouncement And Google Featured Snippets

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 19:36:57 +0000

Brian Freiesleben shared a screenshot of a featured snippet showing up not in the first position of the Google Search results page but lower down on the page. Back in the old days, I thought featured snippets can show in multiple locations but we could be wrong. Maybe since the new deduplication change, it stopped. Google search will adopt the SpecialAnnouncement structured data type, the company announced Tuesday. Although support is still in development, Google has published guidelines for using it on COVID-19-related announcements and site owners can already begin marking up their content with it. At the time of publishing, Google did not announce a specific rollout date for the data type in search results. Google has ended its short-lived test of monthly ad budgets, it appears. Advertisers that had access are now being notified, according to a screenshot of the notice that Gianpaolo Lorusso of AdWord Experience tweeted on Wednesday. Google is testing displaying new attributes for local results that show if there is dine-in, delivery or takeout services. Brian Freiesleben and Mike Blumenthal shared screenshots with me over the past few days.

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Google Ad Results and More Covid-19

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 13:38:15 +0000

COVID-19 has evolved into a global event impacting public health as well as the economy. These are uncertain times, and we don't have all the answers, but what we do know now is that small businesses have felt sudden changes in their campaign performance as a result of this worldwide pandemic. We’ve seen that global events often impact PPC performance, and COVID-19 is no exception. As businesses change their operations, people stay in their homes more, and the world reacts to a pandemic unfolding in real time—they turn to online search and news for answers to their questions and solutions to their new needs. For some advertisers, these new searchers are driving new audiences to find their way to advertisers' sites, and some are becoming new customers. For others, the results aren’t as great, and the strategies will need to shift. Marie Haynes is posting a weekly poll on Twitter asking SEOs if they are seeing organic search traffic declines for their customers sites during the COVID-19 period. Most are reporting declines in the past week, abut 60%. While about 16% are saying they saw an increase in traffic and 14% saying they saw no change. Google posted some tips on how to navigate your Google Ads search ads campaigns through the COVID-19 outbreak. Google wrote "as communities respond to COVID-19, we know that this time presents unique challenges for businesses. Below are some considerations as you evaluate your ads and adapt to dynamic market conditions."

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Google Support Delayed And COVID-19 Related Policies

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 20:23:23 +0000

Google support is one of the biggest issues people have been worried about since the beginning of COVID-19. Google has been posting notices in the Google Ads and Google My Business (as well as other products) help areas that phone and other support areas may be slow or unavailable. Google said this is "in light of COVID-19" challenges. We should all be patient with each other during these times.

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Google Ads Business Operations And Rand Fishkin

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 19:13:55 +0000

Google announced, "In March 2020, Google will introduce a new Business Operations verification program." Basically, if you are asked to verify your business and you do not within 30-days, Google Ads may place restrictions on advertiser's ads serving. It says "Advertisers may be asked to provide information about their business operations as part of a new verification program. This includes, but is not limited to, their business model, services offered by the advertiser, and their relationships with advertised brands or third parties."

As concerns around coronavirus continue to mount, internet advertising giants Google and Facebook begin to prohibit ads for medical face masks.
In Google’s case, it is more strictly enforcing a policy that was already in place which restricts ads that capitalize off the coronavirus. For now, Google is only restricting ads for face masks. However, note how the company says it will “continue” to take action “as needed.” In theory, Google could restrict other types of ads in the future depending on how the situation escalates.

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Tulsi Gabbard Looses To Google

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 21:01:46 +0000

Tulsi Gabbard lost a lawsuit she filed against Google when U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson ruled Gabbard had no valid claim that Google violated the 1st Amendment because Google is a private company, not a governmental agency. Gabbard’s campaign was trying to argue Google should be considered a “state actor”, the equivalent of a government or government department and thus subject to the free speech protections guaranteed in the First Amendment.

“Google is not now, nor (to the Court’s knowledge) has it ever been, an arm of the United States government,” Wilson wrote. He dismissed the complaint with prejudice, which means it’s over. Gabbard can’t regroup and try another line of similar argument.

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Search Console And EAT with Bill Slawski and David Harry

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 05:56:00 +0000

Search Console is being upgraded by Google thus giving users the ability to download complete sets of data from reports. Previously, the Search Console only allowed users to download specific table views. In addition to exporting more and better data, Search Console reports will be easier to read once they’re downloaded. This change is being made in response to requests from Search Console users and is available to take advantage of immediately.

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Deceitful Link Building Practices And Google Ads intros

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 20:28:03 +0000

Google webmaster trends analyst John Mueller is planning to investigate a particular link building practice and is seeking assistance from SEOs. Aleyda Solis started a thread on Twitter bringing attention to a deceitful form of link building that has been popping up. The tactic involves an individual claiming to own an image used in an article and demanding credit in the form of a backlink. Solis explains how this happened to her, and that the image in question couldn’t possibly belong to the person she received an email from. Google has added a feature to make it faster to share audiences within manager accounts. There is now a manager account-level setting called “Continous audience sharing” that will enable you to share all available audience lists in the manager account with all of its sub-accounts. Google said an option to share lists created in sub-accounts with the manager account will be coming in a matter of months. This might not be an appropriate action for your situation because it pulls all of the sub-accounts into the audience sharing pool. Before you share a list with another account, be sure you have the proper permissions from the account that owns the list, Google cautions. Advertisers must also consider their privacy policies and be sure to only share remarketing lists with accounts when they’ve received the proper consent from users.

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Google Partners Program And SEMPO

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 21:09:48 +0000

Google Partners program is launching later this year, which may require current partner companies to make several changes. For companies to maintain their Google Partner status, they will have to meet a new set of requirements that go into effect in June 2020. Google is sending emails to partner companies to help them determine whether they’ll maintain partner status as per the new requirements. The Digital Analytics Association announced that they have absorbed the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), an important milestone in the history of search marketing.

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Social Media Sites in 2020 And Facebook Goes To Court

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 20:10:54 +0000

Social Media Sites in 2020 And Facebook Goes To Court. Today on Webcology Jim is joined by Michelle Stinson Ross, Director of Marketing at Apogee Results. Michelle is a recognized authority on the search and social media both within the industry and in the greater business world. Besides being a fairly frequent guest on this show, listeners might have read her columns at Forbes, Search Engine Journal, The SEMPost, and Marketingland. She is a regular speaker at events like the Digital Summit Series, SMX, and PubCon.

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WordPress 5.4 And Privacy Concerns

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 20:44:32 +0000

WordPress 5.4 And Privacy Concerns today on Webcology. Jumpshot, a popular marketing analytics tool, will be shut down by parent company Avast following controversy over the unauthorized sale of user data. Vice reports that the data in question is highly sensitive and was supposed to remain confidential. Documents obtained by Vice reveal how the Avast antivirus program collects data from people who have the software installed on their computers.

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Using Hidden Text And Featured Snippets

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 20:23:20 +0000

Jim Lehrer is one of the last of the great American Journalists, dead at age 85. Founder of what became PBS Newshour. Featured snippets are special boxes where the format of regular listings is reversed, showing the descriptive snippet first. Read more about how Google's Featured Snippets work. Google's John Mueller said on Reddit "A site is not going to outrank your site just because of hidden text." He also added, "Inversely, just having hidden text on a page won't get the site banned from Google."

Google uses many signals for ranking, John explained. He said "Lots of sites get things wrong, lots of sites have text accidentally hidden or even purposely hidden until you interact with the UI. The sites aren't perfect and so our algorithms work to deal with these imperfections in a reasonable way. Sometimes that means the top ranking site is one that does a lot of things technically incorrect." This is the one our algorithms currently think is a good match for a user's query. The person who started this Reddit thread wrote: "My Competition is cheating – is there anything I can do?". He explained, "Two of my biggest competitors use invisible keyword stuffing text". John Mueller from Google is saying said: "Well, it isn't that simple".

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The Look Of Paid And Organic Search Results And 2020 Core Update

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 20:42:32 +0000

The Look Of Paid And Organic Search Results And 2020 Core Update. Google is rolling out an updated look for paid and organic search results on desktop, bringing it more in line with the look of mobile search results. The updated design includes a more prominent “Ad” label for paid results, at least in Google’s estimation, as well as favicons next to organic results. Google’s search ads on the desktop now have a bolded “Ad” label in black text. Google says the label is more prominent, but early feedback suggests users are finding the paid results harder to identify. Being a broad core update, the January 2020 core update will impact all search results on a worldwide scale. It’s not an update that targets something specific that webmasters can improve upon, like the “Speed Update.” Google’s guidance regarding this update remains the same as previous core updates. Google points to this blog post specifically. Google has informed us that you may see a spike in errors in the unparsable structured data report within Google Search Console. This is a bug in the reporting system and you do not need to worry. The issue happened between January 13, 2020, and January 16, 2020. After Google Ads announced it would be sunsetting average position, Microsoft Advertising introduced impression share reporting metrics but said it would continue showing average position as well. That always felt a bit half-hearted, though, particularly when most advertisers mostly shrugged off the change. Google is acquiring Irish startup Pointy, the companies announced Tuesday. Pointy has solved a problem that vexed startups for more than a decade: how to bring small, independent retailer inventory online. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Pointy had raised less than $20 million so it probably wasn’t an expensive buy for Google. But it could have a significant impact on the future of product search.

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iOS Bing Search app and SEO requirements

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 22:08:07 +0000

SEO requirements at Google: Master’s degree or PhD in computer science, engineering, statistics, mathematics or a related discipline. On top of that, a Search Analyst for Google must also have multiple years of experience in SEO, project management, coding, and data analysis. Intent Research vs. Keyword Research, Intent and not being a pigeon. John Mueller and Fredric Dubut both mentioned Intent research this week, John in a Webmaster Hangout and Fredric in a January 3rd video at SELand. Microsoft’s Bing Search App has been updated with a new design aesthetic and its latest update, version 6.48, brings direct site navigation via voice to iOS users.

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Blocking Googlebot-News And Bing & Yahoo Rankings

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 20:40:25 +0000

Researchers at MIT have found a way to make graphene with fewer wrinkles, and to iron out the wrinkles that do appear. They found each wafer exhibited uniform performance, meaning that electrons flowed freely across each wafer, at similar speeds, even across previously wrinkled regions. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Glenn Gabe noticed that if you try to block Google from showing your news stories in just Google News by blocking Googlebot-News, it no longer works. So if you want to follow the old advice (I do not see new advice) to block Google News, you can no longer use the feature to block Googlebot-News. Just to be clear, this is specific to using noindex for Googlebot-News. Russ Jones from Moz did a Twitter poll asking if you report rankings related to Bing and Yahoo to your clients and stakeholders. With almost 900 responses, 86% said they do not, while only 14% said they do. Joy Hawkins posted in the Local Search Forums that she is now seeing, sometimes, a new delivery truck icon in some local panels in the Google mobile results. When you click on that delivery truck icon or the the text on the same line, it will show you where that business serves outside of the primary location listed.

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Google's Mortgage Calculator And Commodity Content

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 20:24:48 +0000

Google has upgraded the built-in tool that shows up in search results for the query “mortgage calculator.” Now, the tool has many of the key features that were missing from the previous version of Google’s mortgage calculator. Commodity content is content that is used across a wide range of sites. For example, content that is pulled by a feed by an affiliate can be seen as commodity content. In the example above, it’s government jobs that are available. There are many solutions for pulling a feed and automatically displaying the information on a website. It can help a publisher scale their publishing while also automating it. The downside is that these solutions are available to other publishers as well. A new study suggests the performance of virtual assistants, like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri, may have plateaued. Perficient Digital released its annual evaluation of virtual assistants. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that none of the top virtual assistants are improving when it comes to answering questions accurately. Not only are they not improving, but the accuracy of every virtual assistant dropped slightly compared to last year’s study. This may be an indication that these technologies have reached their limit, says Eric Enge of Perficient Digital.

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Audio News Aggregation And Google Maps

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 05:56:00 +0000

Google has launched what it calls “Your News Update,” an audio news feed that you access through the Google Assistant. Sources, which Google paid to license, include ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, AP, Politico, USAToday and many others — though apparently not NPR. Google has updated its video structured data help document with new information on some of the latest enhancements to video search results. The updated document has details on how to mark timestamps on YouTube videos, how to monitor performance in Search Console, and more screenshots to show the new structured data types in action. Mike Blumenthal posted a screen shot on Twitter showing a possible sign that Google My Business may be experimenting with doing its own booking or reservation system or engine. He showed that under the booking tab, that Google was listed as a provider.

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Building Content For All Intents

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 20:16:08 +0000

Machine learning and entities have given search engines the capacity to better understand not just what a page is about but what various intents a searcher may have. A site owner rarely can create content to satisfy all possible intents and it's important to have methods or at the very least, develop instincts to assess which intents the engines are going to weight most heavily. This session looks at the principles behind how the engines accomplish this, but more importantly - how site owners and SEOs can use this information to generate content strategies and page layouts to maximize their own probability of improving their rankings.

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Algorithmic Updates And WordPress Robots.txt

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 20:23:24 +0000

Dr. Pete, Pete Meyers, from Moz, posted on Twitter "Any algo update that impacts query interpretation or relevance will impact Featured Snippets." This was retweeted by Google's John Mueller, so I guess that is a vote of confidence without passing DA ;-). In all seriousness, we've all seen it, featured snippets are very finicky and change a lot but algorithm updates can cause them as well. Google announced it is now limiting the number of service areas a business can list to no more than 20. Google wrote in the Google Ads Help page "service area businesses are now limited to having a maximum of 20 service areas per business." Google added the limit, which was previously not listed at all, on the help document, which now reads "you can add up to 20 service areas." What if you need more? Google said they "recommend expanding the existing ones to cover larger areas. You can set your service area based on a combination of entire cities, districts, postal codes, or other areas that you serve." What if you already have over 20 service areas listed? Google said you will "receive suggested updates to their service areas to cover the same geographic area while only using 20 areas." One of the takeaways from the Google Webmaster Conference was that if Google tries to access your robots.txt file is unreachable but it does exist then Google won't crawl your site. Google said about 26% of the time GoogleBot cannot reach a robots.txt file. WordPress might make changes in order to reduce this error rate.

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Google My Business And Indexing Flash Content

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 19:33:25 +0000

The Google My Business app is testing allowing business owners communicate with its customers not just through text but also through photos. Some business owners can now send photos to customers who message them via Google Maps and Google Local. Google added messaging to the Google My Business app a year ago after launching it in 2017 via SMS. Now according to Jane Manchun Wong, she posted on Twitter that Google has given her the ability to send photos to customers through the messaging component in the app. Google announced it will stop indexing and ranking Flash content in its search engine. This means Google will no longer process content within Flash SWF files, either on websites designed fully in Flash or web pages that have portions of the page in Flash. Google confirmed it’s rolling out lead form ad extensions in the coming weeks, a feature that was recently spotted in testing. Google has been testing ad extensions that have the ability to capture leads. After tapping a call-to-action button, users can quickly submit a form which is pre-populated with the contact information from their Google account.

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Google Assistant And Google Ads Updates

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 20:10:18 +0000

Google announced that publishers can now create how-to “actions” for Google Assistant by using structured data. This is an opportunity for publishers to expand their reach to a wider audience on Google Assistant. Yahoo announced that all Yahoo Groups will be shut down on Monday, October 21st, and all Groups content will be removed on December 14th. After October 21st, users will no longer be able to upload new content to groups, but it will still remain on the network. Google Ads is rolling out two new ways to reach your target audiences in Google Search. Over the coming weeks, Google Ads will be launching affinity audiences and seasonal event segments for in-market audiences. Here’s more about each of these targeting options. Gary Illyes from Google was asked if Google search tracks or recognizes authors. He said for Google Search it is more about entities, not authors. But for Google News and Google Scholar, Google does recognize authors.

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Search Ranking Algorithm And GoogleBot Update

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 18:01:10 +0000

There is some early chatter in the SEO forums, including WebmasterWorld and some on social media. Some of the tools are showing some fluctuations as well today, where some others have not updated yet. Google announced it is changing the user agent name of the current GoogleBot in December. We knew this was coming when Google launched the new Evergreen GoogleBot. Google didn't change the user agent from Chrome 41 to what it was really running to not cause issues for some who hardcoded scripts for user agent detection. The only way to see which version of Chrome GoogleBot was running was to see what features that GoogleBot can render. A WebmasterWorld thread has some complaints that the number of external links reported in Google Search Console's link report is down by about 50%. Like Google cut out about half of the links they were originally reporting.

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Happy Birthday Google!

Fri, 27 Sep 2019 13:50:43 +0000

Tomorrow is Google's 21st birthday and Google has already released its very own birthday Doodle to celebrate. The Doodle depicts a desktop computer from 1998 and the old Google home page and old Google logo. Google's John Mueller said that if someone takes your image and embeds it on their site using your image URL as the source, also known as hotlinking images, that image would not be considered a link to your web site. So if you take an image from my site, but don't just copy it to your server, instead you request the image from your server, that won't be considered an inbound link. Gary Illyes from Google said last night on Twitter that emailing Google for support with your SEO and your ranking problems in Google never really works. He said "That’s impossible" when someone claimed that emailing Google did help his ranking issues. He joked "Yeah cos emailing google is a great solution" after seeing a photo from a presentation that said "We sent emails to Google staff we knew."

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Syndicated Content Over Original Publishers And The Google Search Bug

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 19:09:05 +0000

Google announced an algorithm update intended to rank original news higher. Despite Google’s update, apparently an authority site like Yahoo News can syndicate content and outrank the original. In the past 24 hours or so, we had numerous reports sent to us that searchers are seeing only URLs for the Google search results snippets. The title and description portion of the snippets were missing. LinkedIn is introducing skill assessments which allow users to demonstrate their expertise and add a “verified skill” badge to their profile. New research from LinkedIn shows that 76% of professionals wish that employers were able to verify their skills. In response to that feedback, LinkedIn is providing a way for professionals to validate their skills to employers, which can help them stand out amongst other candidates.

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Nofollow Link Attribute Change and How it Affects SEO

Thu, 12 Sep 2019 19:27:12 +0000

Google announced a change to the nofollow link attribute yesterday and with that announcement, Googlers spent the next day responding to questions about it on Twitter. I will go through what changed according to the announcement and then cover almost all of the responses from Google (removing duplicates) so you get a full perspective of this change. Nofollow is an HTML attribute that is added to links. It tells Google that a link is not trusted. It was originally designed to combat blog comment spam. It evolved for use on advertising links and for user generated links that couldn’t be 100% trusted. Google’s systems cannot verify the accuracy of content; instead, it relies on signals that the company thinks aligns with “relevancy of topic and authority,” according to Danny Sullivan, Google’s search liaison, in a tweet posted from his personal account on September 9. This attracted attention from SEOs and kicked off a conversation.

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How Canonical URLs are Chosen And WordPress Hackers

Fri, 06 Sep 2019 17:10:27 +0000

In the latest installment of the #AskGoogleWebmasters video series, John Mueller tackles the topic of how Google chooses canonical URLs. Mueller says its common for websites to have multiple, unique URLs that lead to the same content. For example, there’s WWW and non-WWW versions of a URL. Another common configuration is when the homepage is accessible as index.html, or when upper and lowercase characters in URLs lead to the same pages. Hackers are reportedly exploiting vulnerabilities in over ten WordPress plugins in order to backdoor sites with rouge admin accounts. This is an escalation of an attack that was reported on back in July in which attackers were hijacking sites to serve ads, scams, and malicious app downloads. Now, the same hacker group is taking complete control of vulnerable sites using similar tactics. ZDNet reports as of August 20 the hacker group modified the malicious code planted on hacked sites.

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Say Goodbye To Average Position In Google Ads And The Track for Content Creators

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google said in February that average position would be phasing out earlier this year. Now, we have about 6 weeks to fully absorb the repercussions of the change and implement updates to any reporting, rules or scripts that use average position. In lieu of average position, Google says advertisers should transition to using the position metrics — search top impression rate and search absolute top impression rate — introduced last year. These indicate the percentage of impressions and impression share your ads received in the absolute top (the first ad at the very top of the page) and top of page (above the organic results) ad slots. It’s been proven that consumers are more likely to engage with your brand if you’re offering them excellent content. But every day, writers are overwhelming the web with more and more content; the “rules” of digital marketing are constantly changing…as are the qualities that define what an “excellent” piece of content looks like.

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Say Goodbye To Average Position In Google Ads And The Track for Content Creators

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google not able to index new content And Other Google Changes

Thu, 08 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google has confirmed that as of earlier this morning it is unable to index new content across the web. There is a bug that Google said is “impacting some sites.” But it is bigger than some sites. From our view, this seems much larger than just “some sites.” Clearly Google is eager to fix any indexing issues, because Google wants to surface the most recent content from publishers. For Google to not show breaking news from the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other popular magazines is something Google probably isn’t too happy about. What it looks like. If you try to search for content from a popular news site and then filter to only show content within the past hour, you won’t currently be given any new real content from that site. Google announced another round of updates to how close variants will work. Queries with the same meaning could already trigger ads for exact match keywords as of September 2018. But now, close variants with the same meaning may also affect phrase and broad match modified keywords. Google expects advertisers to see around a 3 to 4% lift in clicks and impressions on the affected keywords with 85% of those being incremental for the account.

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Google not able to index new content And Other Google Changes

Thu, 08 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Interesting Google Search Ranking Tidbits And Google Ads Expand

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Dan Shure posted on his podcast his audio notes from after a private dinner with Gary Illyes of Google from April 4th 2017. Basically, they had a dinner with several SEOs, after the dinner when Dan got into his car, he took audio notes of what he remembered from that dinner. Google announced that in the coming weeks broad match modifier and phrase match keywords will also begin matching to words within the search query that share the same meaning as the keyword. The SEM/PPC community is not surprised but still very frustrated by this news. It is Google Ads (formerly AdWords) expanding the keywords you want to match on for your ads to even more types of keyword phrases. That ultimately can lead to your ad showing more often but also it can lead to your ad showing for queries that you do not want your ads to show for. This has been the trend Google Ads has been going with since 2014 and has been a huge frustration point for the SEM industry. Google has published official guidance on Core Updates that goes beyond anything published before. The guidance covers four areas of content and recommends becoming acquainted with Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines to learn how to judge your own content. The guidance additionally mentioned that updates could affect Google Discover.

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Interesting Google Search Ranking Tidbits And Google Ads Expand

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

YMYL Sites, LinkedIn And Google Search Indexing Issues

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google's John Mueller talked about YMYL, specific to the health space, and mentioned that it is if you are writing about a topic on health that you are not an expert on then you are starting off already on a "shaky foundation." He said it probably makes sense for you to find experts to write or review what you wrote so that the content is "correct and it's trustworthy." He added it is content you want to feel comfortable that your friends can share with other friends. LinkedIn is adding a new feature to user profiles allowing people to list the professional services they offer to clients. This creates an opportunity for users to market their services outside of their business page and possibly connect with new prospects. The new services section in LinkedIn profiles will also be a helpful way for people to communicate exactly what it is they do for work. Just think – how many times have you had to explain to someone what an SEO does? Now you can clearly list the services you perform in your profile. Over the past few weeks or so there has been lot of rumors around why those suspensions have happened. Google has not be exactly clear about the issue but they did say they restored the suspended listings. That was not true and we waited. Now, Candour shared on Twitter a screen shot of Google My Business saying the shortnames connected bug with suspensions should be resolved soon, probably within 48 hours. The direct message reads "our engineering team has conformed that there was a technical issue connected to short names that is in profess of being fixed. If however, you are still experiencing the issue after 48 hours, please reply here with your dashboard URL."

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Congressional Hearing On Google And Google Non Biased Against Conservative Websites

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google was in a hearing this week in congress around antitrust issues, so was Apple, Facebook and Amazon. Well, Congressman David N. Cicilline questioned Google on the Google's mission on getting people to go off of the search results page and on to a different site as quickly as possible. He then referenced a study Rand Fishkin published on SparkToro named As the Antitrust Case Against Google Kicks Off, Here’s Where the DOJ Should Start. This study basically shows that Google sends a surprisingly low percentage of clicks out of its search results pages to non-Google properties. Is Google in some way biased against conservative sites – especially in news? Some people believe this. This controversy has been growing over the last couple of years or so. This claim of bias started with the president but has even made it all the way to Congress. Today, Google will appear before Congress (again) and answer questions about these accusations of conservative censorship. The other day we reported that the Google My Business issues were reportedly fixed according to Google. Well, many local SEOs and businesses are saying this is not true. Google told Greg Sterling "all listings that were not visible have been restored." That might not be 100% true.

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How Pages Blocked by Robots.txt Are Ranked And Site UX Can Impact Your Google Rankings

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google’s John Mueller recently explained how query relevancy is determined for pages blocked by robots.txt. It has been stated that Google will still index pages that are blocked by robots.txt. But how does Google know what types of queries to rank these pages for? Dejan posted a Twitter poll the other day and it received almost 600 responses from within the SEO community. The question was "Good UX impacts rankings." The responses available were "directly," "indirectly," or "neither." Google's John Mueller said it is best to be consistent with your URL structure and either choose to use slashes after the URL or not to use slashes after the URL. Try not to use both formats if possible. He posted this on Twitter when asked about slashes after URLs "The best solution is to be consistent and only use one version of a URL. Link to that version, redirect to it, use it in sitemaps, use it for rel-canonical, etc." Some searchers in India are noticing that when you enter a query into Google that has no matches and Google has no idea what you are looking for, Google will show you a section called "some popular queries."

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Google Hangouts on Air And a New Hub for Small Business Marketing

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 19:28:00 +0000

Google recently began informing YouTube users that Hangouts is being discontinued in 2019. This affects Google’s Webmaster Hangouts. Google’s John Mueller received notice at the same time as everyone else. Many of the tools available as part of the ‘Google for Small Business’ initiative have been developed based on feedback received from small business owners. The 2019 U.S. Search Awards has officially launched and is accepting entries until July 5. Don’t wait – get your submissions in now! Soon after, judges will begin the process of deciding which agencies, brands, and individuals will be shortlisted for the 2019 awards ceremony, happening Wednesday, October 9 at the SLS Las Vegas Hotel & Casino during Pubcon Las Vegas, the premier social media and search optimization conference.

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No-Click Google Searches And The Universal Search

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 07:00:00 +0000

The data, provided by marketing analytics firm Jumpshot, showed that zero-click searches on Google have steadily risen over the past three years. In the first quarter of 2019, 48.96% of all U.S. Google searches captured by Jumpshot ended without a click, an increase of 12% from the first quarter of 2016. The data also showed that, in the first quarter of 2019, 41.45% of Google searches resulted in organic clicks to non-Google sites and 5.9% of searches ended with the user heading to another Google-owned web site. When looking at just the searches that resulted in a click, 12% went to Google-owned sites. There are a few definitions for universal search on the web, but I prefer hearing it from the horse’s mouth on things like this. While Google hasn’t given a strict definition that I know of as to what universal search is from an SEO standpoint, they have used the following definition in their Search Appliance documentation. Google has released a statement on how it will handle song lyrics in search results following allegations that it stole content from Genius. Song lyrics in search results are sourced from third parties and going forward the sources will now be credited.

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Negative SEO Attack, Links & Title Tags Matter To Ranking In Google

Thu, 13 Jun 2019 07:00:00 +0000

In a Webmaster Hangout, Google’s John Mueller answered a question from a web publisher who asked what to do about a suspected negative SEO attack. The web publisher asked if he should wait until he received a manual action from Google. John Mueller then stated that the links were likely normal spam links. Normal spam links happen naturally all the time. This has been the case since as long as I can remember. Guess what - in 2019 - it turns out that links and title tags still matter to doing well in Google's search results. We had John Mueller from Google said links matter for PageRank and thus building trust. Gary Illyes from Google say that HTML title tags also matter for SEO.

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75th Anniversary Of The DDay Landing And Yoast Stepping Down

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 19:35:02 +0000

SEO Folks. Monday was Catfish Comstock's birthday. Catfish has been an SEO who has been a contributor to the community and knowledge-base as long as I can remember. As it turns out, it's also Carolyn Shelby's birthday. She too has dedicated her life to improving SEO and SEM. She has gone by the name Cshel forever.Google dropped a core update that day that they're going to insist on calling the June 2019 core-update. Let's informally rename it in honor of some people who have given a good part of their lives to our industry. Now, I actually support the use of date-month-year naming for core updates. In the long run its the best way to track their implementation and effect. That said, each should have informal names crafted by the community that obsesses over them most because they're puzzles with solutions that belong to those who solve them or make use of the solutions.

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Canada hits Zuckerberg with summons And Putting Wix SEO to the Test

Thu, 30 May 2019 07:00:00 +0000

FACEBOOK CEO MARK ZUCKERBERG has appeared before Congress in the past, to talk about the giant social network’s role in misinformation and election-meddling, but the number of times he has appeared before a government committee is vastly outweighed by the number of times he has declined to do so. The Facebook co-founder continued that streak by failing to appear in Canada this week before an international committee that is looking into Facebook’s status as a conduit for misinformation. His second-in-command, Sheryl Sandberg, also refused to attend. As a result, the Canadian government issued an open-ended summons that requires both Zuckerberg and Sandberg to appear before Parliament should they enter Canada for any reason. If they fail to do so, they could be held in contempt. The Trust Project, a technology-backed news initiative made up of dozens of global news companies, announced Thursday that it raised an additional $2.25 million from Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Facebook and the Democracy Fund. There are lots of opinions out there about Wix SEO. Some people love it, some hate it. But it’s hard to overlook how dedicated Wix is to helping business owners get their websites found online. There are no shortcuts when it comes to SEO – it’s an ongoing challenge. But Wix isn’t afraid of challenges. In fact, they encourage them. That’s why they spent this past year consulting with SEO experts to bridge the gaps and create tools for a more professional user base.

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Google favors a small number of major outlets And SEOs Not Happy With Google Ads

Thu, 16 May 2019 07:00:00 +0000

In the last week of April, nearly 23 percent of all traffic to news sites tracked by web analytics firm Parse.ly came from search engines. Google alone accounts for nearly half of the external referral traffic—traffic, that is, that comes from platforms, apps, and other outside sources— to news sites. Together with the fact that Facebook referral traffic is on the wane, this means that Google’s search algorithm is now perhaps the most powerful mediator of online attention to the news. Google announced tons of new ad features yesterday - two of the more controversial ones within the SEO community are the discover ads that show up on the Google mobile home page and the gallery ads that make some of the search ads on the search results page massively. This week, WhatsApp began urging its 1.5 billion or so users to update their apps to get the latest security patch. The Facebook-owned company — which touts its "simple, secure" messaging — said it discovered spyware had been installed remotely on "dozens" of smartphones through the app. The hack affected both Apple and Android users. Without naming the company, WhatsApp described the hackers as "a private company that has been known to work with governments to deliver spyware." Jim and Kristine also welcome the new host of LPO: Landing Page Optimization and the founder of Conversion Sciences, Brian Massey. They discuss the pressing issues affecting those working on landing pages and conversion and the evolution of that space over the span of the last 24 months.

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GoogleBot Runs Latest Chrome And New Speed Report

Thu, 09 May 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Probably the biggest news for the SEO industry out of Google I/O yesterday was that Google said Googlebot is now evergreen, meaning it will stay up-to-date with the latest version of Chromium, their popular Chrome browser. This brings thousands of new features to Googlebot for crawling purposes. I did cover this last night at Search Engine Land and this news shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone - we saw Google testing this just a few weeks ago. Google announced it a year ago at Google I/O 2018 but didn't launch FAQ and How-to structured data until a year later at this years 2019 Google I/O event. It comes with new rich results and new Google Search Console enhancement reports. At Google I/O they demonstrated a new report within Google Search Console named the Speed Report. It is currently in beta or experimental mode but they showed some screen shots of it in action.

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Google Upgrades Q & A And New eCommerce and Payment Platform For Facebook

Thu, 02 May 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google appears to be rolling out an upgrade to Google Questions Answers (Q A) that uses previous answers to questions and Google Local Business (GMB) reviews to suggest answers to new questions in real time. A new consumer survey about Google SERP engagement, from Path Interactive , finds organic search results still dominate user attention but younger searchers are more inclined to look to content in Featured Snippets and the Knowledge Panel without clicking through to third-party sites. This phenomenon has been dubbed “no-click” search results and is a worrying trend for many publishers. Google tweeted Thursday that it may have selected unrelated canonical URLs for some pages and that breadcrumb trails on mobile might show the unrelated URLs. Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a keynote presentation at the F8 Conference where he revealed that Facebook-owned WhatsApp is moving toward hosting web shops where customers can browse a store’s products and make purchases. This may represent a way to move beyond the advertising model by becoming an eCommerce platform.

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Facebook Goes To Court And Naughty Scooters

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Canada's federal privacy watchdog plans to take Facebook to court following an investigation that found the social media giant broke a number of privacy laws and failed to take responsibility for protecting Canadians' personal information. The electric scooter company Lime’s ongoing trial period in Brisbane, Australia isn’t going so great, according to Gizmodo — at least eight scooters have been pulled from the streets because hackers replaced the usual audio messages with sexually explicit comments. Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that the nofollow link attribute has been and still is working fairly well. He added hasn't "seen many cases of sites causing themselves significant issues, or of pages not getting credit in quite some time."

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Blackberry announces the end of BBM service and Amp Stories get their own place in search results

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Blaming a “very fluid” technology industry, Emtek –who BlackBerry licensed its BBM consumer business to in 2016 –has announced that is ending BBM service, effective at the end of next month. Google is adding a new section to search results which are dedicated to AMP Stories. AMP Stories was announced over a year ago and now they’re rolling out in a big way. AMP Stories are exactly what they sound like – Instagram-like stories that are built on the AMP framework. In addition to having a dedicated block in search results, AMP Stories can be linked to just like any other web page. That’s the key difference between AMP Stories and other types of stories. A recent exchange on Twitter between Rand Fishkin and Google’s Danny Sullivan highlighted the tension between Google and the SEO community regarding links. This time it was over the idea of links to sources that are quoted by websites like news organizations.

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Google warns SEOs to expect increases in issues And Links Not Shown In Search Console Are Generally Irrelevant By Google

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google's John Mueller was answering questions around an old topic of Google showing only a sample of links in the link report in Google Search Console at Reddit. He said that generally if the links are not shown in the tool then they are "pretty irrelevant overall." For a long time now, Google has been teasing that they are working on closing the gap between how Chrome renders pages and how GoogleBot renders pages. The web rendering engine Google uses for crawling the web is going to get a lot more advanced but Google won't say when. Martin Splitt from Google, who is close to the project on making this happen, said at SMX Munich the other day that he knows when it is scheduled to happen but he won't say. Google has posted a warning in the Google Search Console data anomalies page that you can expect those reports to see an increase in the number of issues and affected items and/or pages starting on April 3, 2019. The reason is Google has started to collect data from more pages than it previously did.

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Google Maps Rolls Out New Public Events Feature And March 2019 Update Theories on How to Fix

Thu, 28 Mar 2019 18:26:00 +0000

AdWords Editor has historically been one of Google’s most popular advertising products. Contributor and Googler Matt Lawson lists what makes him most excited about its relaunch as Google Ads Editor. Ahrefs CEO Dmitry Gerasimenko announced a plan to create a search engine that supports content creators and protects users privacy. Dmitry laid out his proposal for a more free and open web, one that rewards content creators directly from search revenue with a 90/10 split in favor of publishers. Google Maps is letting users create public events associated with specific locations–a feature that could compete with Facebook events. This feature hasn’t been officially announced, although it has been confirmed in the sense that there’s a dedicated help center article. People have also reported seeing it in search results already. Events can be added to a Google Maps listing from the Contribute tab in the Android app.There are a number of competing theories about what the March 2019 Update was about. This article evaluates each theory and proposes an idea of how to diagnose a ranking drop and how to fix it.

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Google's Shift to Search Journeys Facebook admits Big Mistake

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Facebook confirmed Thursday in a blog post, prompted by a report by cybersecurity reporter Brian Krebs, that it stored “hundreds of millions” of account passwords in plaintext for years. The discovery was made in January, said Facebook’s Pedro Canahuati, as part of a routine security review. None of the passwords were visible to anyone outside Facebook, he said. Facebook admitted the security lapse months later, after Krebs said logs were accessible to some 2,000 engineers and developers. It used to be that Google’s algorithm tried its best to give users the answers they were searching for. However, today, things aren’t that simple. With concepts like user intent and the buyer’s journey becoming increasingly important, Google has revamped its algorithm in order to better understand what users are actually searching for when they type in a phrase or question.Google has stopped supporting the rel=next/prev markup it launched back in 2011. The interesting part is, Google has not supported it for the past few years and didn’t tell anyone! Google has released another video around JavaScript and SEO, this one on how to do testing and debugging to make sure your JavaScript web site is performing well in search.

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Google’s ‘Florida 2’ algorithm update And A Broad Core Search Algorithm

Thu, 14 Mar 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Not long after Google released a broad core algorithm update on March 12, some in the industry began calling it the “Florida 2 update.” But the moniker has created a bit of confusion among SEOs who wonder if this week’s release is related to the Florida update in November 2003. It’s not. Here’s what you need to know. oogle does several core ranking updates per year and confirms very few updates throughout the year. Specific to broad core updates, Google has said numerous times that you cannot do anything specific to fix your rankings. Google’s previous advice is, “there’s no ‘fix’ for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages.” An article was highlighted yesterday but some folks in the search community implied that after a rater visits your site your rankings can immediately improve or drop down - that is not true.

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SEOs go bananas And Google Search Console Replaces Property Sets

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google has finally sent us an official statement about our question if Google use click through rate for rankings. Sadly the statement will lead to even more confusion and debate. After the debate around CTR rekindled last week, we asked Google for a statement from their PR team we can share around click-through rate. In short, various Googlers have told us over the years that CTR data is not used within Google’s ranking algorithm. Goodbye property sets and hello domain properties, a new automated way to aggregate your whole site's data into one Google Search Console view. Google announced it has launched “domain properties,” a feature that lets you see data from a whole domain in one view within Google Search Console. This can consolidate your http, https, www, non-www, m-dot, etc into a single property to get an aggregate view of your site’s performance and errors/warnings in a single Google Search Console property.

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How Google will shift resources to media search And A New Consolidated View

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes, who has been with Google for over eight years working exclusively on search-related topics, participated in an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit over the weekend. Over the course of the lengthy discussion thread, he covered everything from robots.txt to RankBrain to behavioral signals to image and video search. We’ll save you the trouble of sifting through it all by sharing all the important stuff here. One day after Google said it would be consolidating the data within the Google Search Console’s performance report to the canonical URL, the company decided to start the preview of the consolidated data view on Thursday, a month or so earlier than they planned. Represented as a percentage, click share is an indication of how many clicks your ads received out of the total number of times Google estimates your ads could been clicked. It helps show how effectively your ads are engaging users compared to the competition. Impression share, on the other hand, shows how effective you’ve been at getting your ads shown to users.

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Yoast To Add Live Indexing With Bing & Google And you can’t buy likes or followers in social media

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

In a case related to the New York Times investigation into American company Devumi, a court has ruled that Devumi can no longer operate in the same way as it had been, essentially outlawing the sale of social media followers and likes. The chief executive of cryptocurrency company Quadriga CX has died, and he's apparently the only one with the ability to unlock all his customers' coins. Without their digital keys, his clients lose access to their funds. The company's board of directors said last week it is seeking creditor protection. Joost de Valk announced at YoastCon that the popular WordPress plugin, Yoast SEO, will provide live indexing with both Google and Bing starting next month. They explained on their blog "For Google the details on this are not entirely determined yet, but a Google Search Console account will probably be required." So it seems they aren't clear and for some reason, I doubt it would be the Indexing API because that is highly restricted to specific types of content.

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Google adds voice input And Says Goodbye to 404 Sitemaps In The New Search Console

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google's John Mueller was asked on Twitter if there is a way in the new Google Search Console to remove old Sitemaps files. He said you can 404 them to remove them. Maybe Google will add a button to delete old Sitemap files there but for now, 404ing them will eventually get them to be removed. A new mic icon. Below are screens from Android on the left and the iPhone on the right, showing Google.com search results. The iPhone doesn’t show the mic, although the keyboard allows voice input. The search phrase is “what percentage of mobile queries are voice searches?” Beyond the microphone icon inside the search box, the major difference — a significant one — is that users will hear a spoken response now with Android mobile web searches rather than simply get a set of “silent” results. This voice response may encourage people to undertake more searches while their eyes are occupied, such as when they are cooking or driving.

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Google My Business Now Available For Mobile Business's and The testing Video Lightbox

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

We saw this coming and now Google officially released a new sign up process for service area businesses, businesses that don't operate out of a specific location(s). Google now lets them specify the locations they service, instead of being stuck without any options. Google is testing a video overlay or lightbox feature to play videos in the mobile search results. In the search results captured by Valentin Pletzer on Twitter he showed how instead of being taken to the video landing page, Google shows the video itself in an overlay. Google has asked the National Labor Relations Board to reconsider rules allowing employees to organize over workplace email without fear of punishment, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday. The Obama-era precedent restricts companies from disciplining employees who used internal email communication for actions such as circulating petitions, organizing walkouts, or trying to form a union, according to the report.

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Advertising Legend Terry O'Reilly on Gillette and Nike Pushing Social Commentary Messaging

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode Jim and Dave shared the mic with advertising legend, Terry O'Reilly. They discussed how brands like Gillette and Nike make the decision to push the envelope in making social commentary in their ads, the risks involved and hot to mitigate then. They went on to discuss how technology is changing the way we live, destroying some sectors and creating new ones. It was an episode you don't want to miss.Web hosting provider GoDaddy is inserting JavaScript code into websites, which could slow down performance or break sites altogether. A snippet of JavaScript code is being added to sites in order to use a technology called Real User Metrics (RUM). Google has finally fixed the exploit with the knowledge panel in their search results. It only took them about three years to do so, but it is fixed. You can no longer create fraudulent knowledge panels with this hack. YouTube announced it is strengthening enforcement of its community guidelines to protect users from people who abuse the platform. Enforcement refers to actions such as removing a video or issuing a strike for a video that violates YouTube’s policies. The company says it is ramping up its efforts in response to community feedback. YouTube is specifically strengthening enforcement in these three areas.

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Google Fixed The Knowledge Panel Hack And New Additions To Go Daddy

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Web hosting provider GoDaddy is inserting JavaScript code into websites, which could slow down performance or break sites altogether. A snippet of JavaScript code is being added to sites in order to use a technology called Real User Metrics (RUM). Google has finally fixed the exploit with the knowledge panel in their search results. It only took them about three years to do so, but it is fixed. You can no longer create fraudulent knowledge panels with this hack. YouTube announced it is strengthening enforcement of its community guidelines to protect users from people who abuse the platform. Enforcement refers to actions such as removing a video or issuing a strike for a video that violates YouTube’s policies. The company says it is ramping up its efforts in response to community feedback. YouTube is specifically strengthening enforcement in these three areas.

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Speed Up Page Removal From Google And The 411 on social sharing

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

A lot of news came out yesterday evening around an old Google knowledge panel exploit that let's you manipulate almost any query to show any knowledge panel. Yes, this is embarrassing for Google but even more so because it is something that was reported back in 2016. Have a lot of pages you want removed from the Google index and don't want to use the page removal tool for each URL? Google's John Mueller said you can try to 404 and noindex all the pages you want removed and then submit a temporary sitemap to Google. It might speed things up he said. With social shares on content down 50 percent since 2015, it’s feeling like a lost cause to even consider social media in your content plan. And we’ve all heard the age-old “social sharing buttons are dead” statements. Just like we’ve heard for SEO, content marketing, PPC, and just about every other marketing tactic that still works. The biggest gripes that tag along with social sharing buttons are often from marketers who use them wrong.

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Google Moving Google Posts And Emphasizes Message this business

Thu, 03 Jan 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Google can now link to some content it is showing in their search results in a new way. Instead of just linking to the page, Google can anchor you to the exact spot of the answer you are looking for and highlight the block of text that is most relevant to your query. This only works for some searches on Google mobile, that feature AMP content in the featured snippet block. Google is testing a bigger push for the messaging option within the local panel. Google launched messaging within Google My Business in July 2017. Google is now testing a way to promote messaging more to searchers in the local panel by using a larger message button. A few months ago, Google stopped showing Google Posts in the top location, somewhat above the fold, in the local panel for a business. That seemed to have led to Google Posts performance drastically dropping off. Now, Google may be testing moving the Google Posts back up.

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Google’s top searches in 2018 and Moving Hosting Companies

Thu, 13 Dec 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Today were joined by Michelle Stinson-Ross, the Director of Marketing Operations at Apogee Results to discuss a plethora of topics. Google has released its annual list of top searches around the world, including overall searches and searches in various categories. Top queries reflect everyday questions, as well as the people and events that made headlines in 2018. Certain events led to people searching for how to improve their everyday lives, Google notes.Google's John Mueller said that moving to a new hosting company doesn't cause ranking declines. Of course he means if the new hosting company doesn't prevent GoogleBot from crawling your site. But in general, moving hosts doesn't have a negative impact on your rankings.

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Wordpress 5 And Google Competitor Takes Shots Through New Poll

Thu, 06 Dec 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Aaseesh from Google responded to a complaint about Google not picking up on a web site's canonical tags. He said that "even if you setup the canonical tags properly, other signals like inconsistent redirects can make Google not select your preferred URL". As you know, Search Engine Land was delisted from Google's search results for most of the day on Friday because a bug in Google's hack sites classifier labeled the site as being hacked. Colin McDermott ran a Twitter poll asking if Google should delist the site or just issue a warning. 2/3rds of those who responded said Google should just issue a warning. DuckDuckGo, a Google competitor, came out with a study that claimed Google's search results create what is known as a "filter bubble," this influencing what you click on and see. Google came to Twitter and defended themselves saying their personalization does not do that.

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Scoring Your SEO With Google And Trusting Your Website

Thu, 29 Nov 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Content, from an SEO perspective, is the connection of entities by relationships. In the statement, “SEO is dead” there is the entity “SEO”, there is the entity “dead” and there is the relationship that one connects to the other and the direction of the said relationship. Google's John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a video hangout that Google does not use the BBB, Better Business Bureaus score or reviews as well as other third-party trust sites in their ranking algorithm. So all that talk about making sure you have a good BBB score with the core updates is really completely unrelated to core search rankings. The other day, Google launched a new portal named web.dev that pretty much has lighthouse, another Google tool, results for your audit. One of the lighthouse results is an SEO score. Google just wants you to link naturally and not worry about linking out. If you want to link to a site because it is something your readers would find useful, then link away. John Mueller from Google said on Twitter "Just link naturally, no need to do anything fancy when linking to other articles in an organic way like that."

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What Are Entities & Why They Matter for SEO

Thu, 15 Nov 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Content, from an SEO perspective, is the connection of entities by relationships. In the statement, “SEO is dead” there is the entity “SEO”, there is the entity “dead” and there is the relationship that one connects to the other and the direction of the said relationship. All content is fundamentally like this. Google's John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a video hangout that Google does not use the BBB, Better Business Bureaus score or reviews as well as other third-party trust sites in their ranking algorithm. So all that talk about making sure you have a good BBB score with the core updates is really completely unrelated to core search rankings. The other day, Google launched a new portal named web.dev that pretty much has lighthouse, another Google tool, results for your audit. One of the lighthouse results is an SEO score. So I asked SEOs, should Google be scoring their SEO this way?

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Google Employees walk over Google’s treatment of sexual harassment suits

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Long gone are the times of monthly Google PageRank updates, Google dances, and checking Google data centers - and to be honest, I somewhat miss those days. But the question I see asked a lot is how much have things changed? The answer is a lot has changed but fundamentally nothing has changed. Several people have recently reported seeing double featured snippets in Google search results. A double featured snippet is a featured snippet with a second featured snippet beneath it. This arrangement effectively shows information from two websites and advertising in the space normally showing ten websites. Growing up in India, there was one good library in my town that I had access to—run by the British Council. It was modest by western standards, and I had to take two buses just to get there. But I was lucky, because for every child like me, there were many more who didn’t have access to the same information that I did. Access to information changed my life, bringing me to the U.S. to study computer science and opening up huge possibilities for me that would not have been available without the education I had.

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Google Maps Now Provides Accessibility Information for Over 40 Million Places

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google's Gary Illyes said at PubCon last week that Google finds content mostly through links and XML Sitemaps. He said the number one way is through links, crawling links on the web and the number two way is through XML Sitemaps. Google announced it is now rolling out the Google Lens button within Google Image search results. Google Lens, which was introduced in May 2017, is a visual search tool to help people learn more about images and what they are visually looking at.Google has announced that Maps now provides accessibility information for more than 40 million listings. The company attributes this accomplishment to an initiative launched last year. In July 2017, Google started letting users add accessibility details to business listings. At that time, Google said accessibility information was available to roughly 7 million listings around the world. In a little over a year, that number has increased by over 30 million.

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Google Ads Test And Facebook Expanding Fact Checking

Thu, 20 Sep 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google seems to be testing an ad format on mobile search where they remove the description section from the ad. The ad copy is removed, the only thing you see are the headlines and URL. This was being tested on mobile in the bottom ad units.Facebook announced it’s expanding fact-checking efforts to review the accuracy of photos and videos. Until now Facebook’s fact-checking efforts have been focused on reviewing articles to reduce the spread of false news. Going forward, all of Facebook’s 27 fact-checking partners in 17 countries will also be focused on reducing the spread of misinformation through photos and videos. Amazon will surpass Oath and Microsoft to become the third largest digital ad seller in the U.S. behind Facebook and Google. That’s the latest from research firm eMarketer, which predicts Amazon’s ad growth will more than double this year. As eMarketer notes, the change in projection — up 60 percent from March — is due to a combination of an accounting change and 10 to 12 percent increase in stronger-than-expected ad revenue growth.

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Google Search Console Out Of Beta And Chrome Makes Major Update

Thu, 13 Sep 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google has announced the new Google Search Console is out of beta after being tested for over a year. Over the year, Google has done a full open beta invite to all users and has been migrating features from the old Google Search Console to the new version. Google has launched a new type of search engine designed specifically around helping people find data. Simply called “Dataset Search,” the tool provides easier access to millions of datasets across thousands of data repositories on the web. Chrome 69 introduces performance enhancements as well as changes that will affect how users search. Chrome also introduces opportunities for developers to create interesting user experiences on mobile devices.The most dramatic change is a new feature called Omnibox Smart Answers. It allows users to get answers to questions in the address bar without loading a website. These are rich results shown in the address bar. Chrome calls the address bar the Omnibox. And it calls the rich results shown in the Omnibox, Smart Answers.

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A Search Engine Designed Specifically Around Helping People Find Data

Thu, 06 Sep 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google has launched a new type of search engine designed specifically around helping people find data. Simply called “Dataset Search,” the tool provides easier access to millions of datasets across thousands of data repositories on the web. Chrome 69 introduces performance enhancements as well as changes that will affect how users search. Chrome also introduces opportunities for developers to create interesting user experiences on mobile devices. Google has announced the new Google Search Console is out of beta after being tested for over a year. Over the year, Google has done a full open beta invite to all users and has been migrating features from the old Google Search Console to the new version.

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Google Makes Official Announcement, Launches New Codelab, And Gets Official Presidential Attack

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google has officially launched their structured data codelab, which allows you to walk through a step-by-step process to make your own structured data for your web site. Google's codelab walks you through adding several types of structured data to a simple HTML site, including where to place structured data on a site and how to validate it. Google also announced some important changes to how user management and rights work within the Google Search Console. In a pair of tweets Tuesday morning the president said, “Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me others, so that almost all stories news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of…. results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good.

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Migrating From HTTP To HTTPS And Google's New Search Console

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google trends analyst John Mueller strongly recommended that people migrating from HTTP to HTTPS do so with 301 redirects on a per-URL basis. He said you should not use other types of redirects, such as 303s or others; you should stick with 301 redirects for these migrations. Google has now added a link to the help document for this new report, saying the new report is “more accurate than the old Links to your site report.” Google felt the need to explain this so people would know that a drop in links from the old to the new report doesn’t mean Google sees fewer links to their site, it just means the new report is more accurate. Facebook has a life event feature in which users create a special post declaring the life event and details like the date, description, and even photos. To check it out, go to your name on your personal page on the top left, select “about”, you will find out how to add life events to your personal Facebook page. This will give you an idea more about the life event posts from the user experience.

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Google Broad Core Algorithm Update Confirmed

Thu, 02 Aug 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google Confirms Broad Core Algorithm Update: The Facts Advice; Google mobile speed update has no impact on general mobile rankings; Bing Ads rolls out Target CPA Maximize Conversionsbidding strategies.

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MozCon 2018 : Google Local Intent and Democratization of SEO

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Davie Davies reports from MozCon 2018, and he speaks with Rob Bucci, the CEO of STAT Search Analytics talks about his presentation on Near me or Far: How Google May Be Deciding Your Local Intent for You annd Jono Alderson, the Mad Scientist at Yoast who spoke on The Democratization of SEO.

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Amazon PPC Challenges Google Ads And Google Tests Locations

Thu, 19 Jul 2018 07:00:00 +0000

During the livestreamed keynote at Google Marketing Live in San Jose, California, on Tuesday, Google executives announced several initiatives, all of which are powered by machine learning and take automation to another level. A study of billions of dollars in Pay Per Click (PPC) expenditures reveals insights into spending trends, particularly between the platforms hosted by Google and Amazon. The study was conducted by Marin Software, extrapolated from billions of dollars of PPC budgets. In February, Apple hired then Google SVP of Engineering John Giannandrea to oversee its machine learning and artificial intelligence efforts. In his eight years at Google, Giannandrea was responsible for machine learning improvements to various Google products, including search, Gmail and the Google Assistant. At the time, we wrote that it wasn’t clear what Giannandrea’s involvement with Siri would be, but the virtual assistant definitely could definitely use his help. Indeed, earlier this week, Apple merged Siri and its machine learning groups under Giannandrea’s leadership. He’s now “Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.”

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The Rise of Artificial Intelligence and SEO

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave welcome Yext’s VP of Industry Insights, Duane Forrester to talk about the rise of artificial intelligence and SEO. Plus, we learn about his work on Digital Knowledge Management, which gives businesses control of all of the public facts that they want consumers to know across the intelligent ecosystem.

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Google AdWords and DoubleClick to be rebranded as Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform

Thu, 28 Jun 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google AdWords and DoubleClick to be rebranded as Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform. Google not punishing keyword stuffing, harshly. Reasons for HTML validation – Roger Monti who seems to be challenging lots of what GG says. Google says they managed to reduce spam links by half in 2017 and that less than 1% of traffic now ends up on spammy pages.

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Facebook Lets Group Admins Charge And Google Return Policies

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google’s local pack, the local results that show up in the main search results page, now may show different business categories next to a business’s name based on the category the user queried. Google has removed the ability for users to book rides with Uber directly through the Google Maps app. This is a feature that has been around since 2017, and was removed without any announcement other than an update to the “Request a ride” help page. Google has started showing store return policies within Google My Business listings in local search results. This was first spotted by Sergey Alakov, who posted about it on Twitter. July is shaping up to be a big month for Google. Earlier this month, the company announced its Speed Update set to roll out in July, and today announced it will then also mark all sites that have not migrated to HTTPS as “not secure.” Facebook is now monetizing groups by giving admins the option to implement monthly membership fees. Subscriptions are currently being piloted with a select number of groups and may be rolled out more widely depending on user feedback. Facebook says that subscriptions are being introduced as a way to support group admins who give their time and energy to maintaining communities.

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No Follow Links for SEO Ranking; Stars, Ratings, and Surveys are not Ranking Factors

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 07:00:00 +0000

No Follow Links for SEO Ranking; Stars, ratings, and surveys are not ranking factors; Local SEO agencies new agency dashboard
Plus, Matt Cutts gets a lifetime achievement award at the SMX US Search Engine Award ceremony in Seattle at SMX Advanced. Googleoffers clarification on some points mobile. Google doesn’t index images found within DIV tags. Anti-Social Media – the Three ways Facebook spies on you. Plus, a return appearance by acknowledged expert, sought after speaker and article contributor.Roger Montti .

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2018 Rocks Digital Marketing Conference

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Previewing the 2018 Rocks Digital Marketing Conference with featured speakers Roger Montti, Lissa Duty, Michelle Stinson Ross, and Bill Hartzer. Business owners, brand mangers and digital marketers from agencies and enterprise corporations around the United States will converge on Dallas, Texas for this national digital marketing conference later this June.

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AdWords Notes Have Arrived And Google Gets Smarter

Thu, 31 May 2018 07:00:00 +0000

A comparison of mobile speed metrics of the Internet from 2017 to 2018 reveals that websites are less mobile friendly today than they were a year ago. This is bad for the Internet. But it can be good news for you.Russian search engine Yandex has introduced a smart speaker, marking the company’s first foray into the world of hardware. The company’s smart speaker, called Yandex Station, is designed to compete with the likes of Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomePod. Scammers claiming to represent Google continue to prey on small business owners. They often also make threats about removing listings or outrageous claims about ranking improvements. Sometimes they try to charge for things that are free on Google. Android Police reports Google is testing a new Google Maps interface for Android showing category search suggestions based on where you are looking at the map. Google announced notes were coming to the new AdWords interface in March at SMX West this year. The new feature has arrived. Here’s a look at how to get started using it. Notes are available at the account, campaign and ad group levels. Just as in Google Analytics, notes in AdWords can be added by clicking on a point in the performance chart.

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Google Scientific Truth Bias? The Ultimate Guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance

Thu, 24 May 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google has a bias towards scientific truth; Google sues SEO company BeyondMenu, Point Break Media, and Supreme. Plus, The Ultimate Guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance – Everything You Need to Know. Plus, Google’s New Algorithm Creates Original Articles From Your Content.

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Cre8asite Forums Closes Down After 20 Years

Thu, 17 May 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Kim Krause Berg, the owner of Cre8asite Forums and founder of Cre8pc, talks ot5 Jim Hedger and guest host Kristine Schachinger about how the revered Cre8asite Forums are being close down after 20 successful years.
She had recently announced:
"There is no easy way to say this, so I'll make it simple.On May 25, 2018 these forums will close down. I'll make an announcement in public next week. For now, the only people who are regulars here can be found here in LABS, and it's you that I feel should learn first.
No need to read much into it. It's been over 20 years.
It's time."

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Deactivating AdWords Accounts With No Recent Ad Spending

Thu, 10 May 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Gannett on Thursday announced an agreement to acquire search marketing and advertising company WordStream for $130 million in cash and up to an aggregate of $20 million earnout during the next 24 months based on achieving certain revenue targets. Google will be deactivating AdWords accounts with no recent ad spend starting in mid-May. Previously, the company stated it would begin deactivating accounts back in March. Google Images is a way to visually discover information on the web. Users can quickly explore information with more context around images with new features, such as image captions, prominent badges, and AMP results. By adding more context around images, results can become much more useful, which can lead to higher quality traffic to your site. You can aid in the discovery process by making sure that your images and your site are optimized for Google Images. Follow our guidelines to increase the likelihood that your content will appear in Google Images search results. Google has updated the mobile-friendly test and the rich results test tools to support JavaScript sites better. Google posted on Twitter that you now will see rendered HTML, console log, exceptions and stack traces.

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Microsoft’s AI capabilities and the Microsoft audience graph

Thu, 03 May 2018 07:00:00 +0000

For the first time, Google is letting agencies register accounts on Google My Business. Agencies registered with GMB will also get access to an all-new dashboard designed to meet the needs of agency partners. One of the key benefits of the new agency dashboard is the ability to manage an unlimited number of locations. Non-agency accounts are limited to 100 locations. User groups can be created that will allow agencies to manage internal teams and control access to locations. This week we reported how Google began sending out notices of sites moving to the mobile-first indexing process as part of the second batch of those sites it is rolling out to. Google has officially begun sending out email notices to site owners confirming their change from desktop indexing to mobile first indexing. And we do have some clarification on mobile friendliness being a criteria or not for sites changing over. Microsoft announced a new display network, the Microsoft Audience Network (MSAN). Though the company has had the “Bing Audience Network,” the new offering brings together a number of elements that weren’t previously available: Bing search-intent signals, Microsoft’s AI capabilities and the Microsoft audience graph.

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Google Updates A Patent Related To PageRank

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 19:06:55 +0000

Today on Webcology we talk about how Google parent Alphabet Inc. has announced financial results for the first quarter of 2018. The company reported $31.1 billion in quarterly revenue, which was down sequentially but up year over year. Revenues beat Wall Street consensus estimates by about $870 million, and earnings also beat analyst expectations. Bill Slawski published an article noting that Google updated a patent related to PageRank. This is an important algorithm because it affects how sites are ranked and explain why some sites rank well while others do not. A Drupal core vulnerability was announced on the official Drupal website. This is called the SA-CORE-2018-004 vulnerability. This vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute code on a Drupal website through “multiple attack vectors.” The official Drupal site recommends upgrading to the most recent versions of Drupal 7 or 8. Attacks based on this vulnerability have not yet been observed in the wild. So it’s important to get ahead of it and update soon. Google parent Alphabet Inc. has announced financial results for the first quarter of 2018. The company reported $31.1 billion in quarterly revenue, which was down sequentially but up year over year. Revenues beat Wall Street consensus estimates by about $870 million, and earnings also beat analyst expectations. Also, Google has confirmed rumors that a search algorithm update took place on Monday. Some sites may have seen their rankings improve, while others may have seen negative or zero change.

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Net Neutrality Alive and Legislated in California

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Net Neutrality remains alive and legislated in California; Google and Anchor Text; The last available IPv4 address block has gone; Google Generally Prefers One Stronger Page Versus Many Smaller Pages; Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case in UK High Court. Decision likely to spark other appeals to courts by those denied de-listing.

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Facebook Data Fallout; Apple Hires Google’s A.I. Chief

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Facebook said Wednesday that as many as 87 million people might have had their data accessed — an increase from the 50 million disclosed in published reports. Apple Hires Google’s A.I. Chief as Ben Gomes To Take Over Search At Google, John Giannandrea Steps Down. John Giannandrea who replaced Amit Singhal as head of Google Search is going to Apple.
Plus, how structured Data helps a site rank, SEO for Rich Results: How to Find Fix Structured Data Errors and Blockchain and SEO.

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Investigating influence and Propaganda in a Digital Age

Thu, 29 Mar 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Jim Hedger and guest host Kristine Schachinger welcome Alicia Wanless-Berk – Digital Propaganda Expert @ La Generalista. La Generalista is an online publication that investigates influence and propaganda in a digital age.
Plus, with Google pushing into retail and Amazon into advertising, where should you invest your ad budget, and No Reset button for penalized sites

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Adds, Annotations, Filters, And Comparisons

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Google will start deactivating AdWords accounts next week if they have not spent any money in the past 15 months. This will occur automatically in an attempt to “speed up” the AdWords experience. An email notification will be sent to individual AdWords users when their account has been deactivated. Mike Blumenthal reports that Google is now slowly rolling out the new Google My Business dashboard that it announced back in November 2017. I have had the new dashboard for my account for a month or so, but according to Mike, who watches the space closely, it is rolling out to more people slowly now. Google's new Search Console which is live for all just got some upgrades Google wants to share with you. Google shared on Twitter that the upgrades are mostly "visual updates" to the reporting in the tool.

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New Google Search Console Uses The Mobile First Index

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 07:00:00 +0000

According to a report from Reuters, the European Commission has proposed new rules that will require search engines, commerce sites and online platforms to explain how they rank results and to reveal why companies are penalized or removed from listings or results. Google is showing answers in the search results without showing any organic listings or ads or anything but the answer. Yehoshua Coren posted on Twitter a screen shot of him going to Google and Google returning the answer and a button to show search results. Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that Google does not "pass signals through a lot of different kinds of links," when asked if Google automatically nofollow Amazon affiliate links.Google has confirmed a core algo update happened last week. Google’s Danny Sullivan stated that Google was not targeting low quality websites. He explicitly confirmed that there is nothing wrong to fix in sites that lose rankings. This announcement is important because it squashes the usual Phantom Update speculation. Google is not targeting “low quality” signals.
Jim Hedger and Dave Davies catch up with welcome MobileMoxie founder Cindy Krum. Learn more about what Cindy is working by checking out the following...
Mobile Search Simulator
Mobile-First Indexing Article Series --- Article 1: Voice, Traditional Search Entity Understanding:
Article 2: Media with PWAs, Apps, Instant Apps Voice:
Article 3: Image Search, Shopping, Schema Payments:
Article 4: International SEO, Languages, Local SEO Maps:

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Joost de Valk opens a Diversity Fund.; Site Update Frequency not a Ranking Signal

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Joost de Valk opens a Diversity Fund. It aims to cover the cost of travel and accommodation for speakers that increase the diversity of speakers at a given conference. Plus, Site or page update frequency is not a ranking signal Occlus Wrecked? Google: Titles Descriptions Are Easy Wins For SEO; Bing has confirmed support for JSON-LD formatted Schema.org markup; Google Image Search Product Schema Shows New Product Filter

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Google Bot's And SEO In The Google Home

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Backlinko has done an extensive analysis of “voice search ranking factors” and identified 11 variables tied to appearing in Google Home results. The company examined 10,000 results delivered over the smart speaker. What Backlinko found was consistent with what many others have been saying but there were also a few surprises. For example, the study discounts the impact of Schema to some degree and page authority. Eric Bidelman from Google posted a PSA, public service announcement, that since GoogleBot is based on Chrome 41, Google is unable to crawl CSS Custom Properties. Using CSS custom properties (variables) CSS variables are entities defined by CSS authors that contain specific values to be reused throughout a document. They are set using custom property notation (e.g. --main-color: black; ) and are accessed using the var() function (e.g., color: var(--main-color); Eric said he ran into the issue himself when he was deploying a layout or design that relies on vars. He said make sure you are compiling CSS so your page renders properly. As you know, the mobile first index is getting ready to expand in the upcoming weeks and some webmasters that still have desktop only sites are a bit nervous. If you still haven't read the official Google tips or the what you need to know you might not understand that desktop sites will be fine.

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RIP Jill Sampey; Google Says Content Order, Position & Placement Matters.

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:00:00 +0000

RIP Jill Sampey; Google: Content Order, Position Placement Matters. Where you place your content on your page can impact your rankings. Daron Babin got a couple cats. WebmasterRadio.FM just wanted to be sure everyone knows that.
We’re one of the 12 best!We’re one of the 12 best! Vote early, vote often. Vote like a Ruskiebot with a stolen VPN. China cracks down on funeral strippers hired to entertain mourners, attract larger crowds
Vahan Petrosyan explains how to take a WP site from http to https and offers a bunch of shortcuts in an article that runs like a checklist. Great resource to bookmark, especially for newer SEOs
Avoid an SEO Disaster During a Website Redesign and Pubcon Austin is on – SMX Advanced is upcoming! June 12 – 13 Seattle

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Google Wants To Get Date Timestamps Accurate

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 07:00:00 +0000

John Mueller from Google said on Twitter that if you are building a new site, then you should most likely go HTTPS from the start. I don't think anyone would argue with that. Switching from HTTP to HTTPS can have its challenges but starting your site off on HTTPS from the onset makes a lot of sense. The folks at RankRanger posted on Twitter that over 70% of the page one Google search results listings are HTTPS. Mozcast has their number of Google's top search results with HTTPS being at 78%, so they are somewhat close but not exact because both tools track different keyword sets. When people were searching about the horrible news in Florida, some noticed that some of the recent articles covering the news were labeled by Google has being written days before the event. Obviously, something that happened hours ago, written potentially minutes ago, should not be labeled in the Google search results as being written 2 or 3 days ago.

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Google's Partnership With WordPress Aims To Jump-Start The Platform's Support

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Today on Webcology Google is sending out new Google Search Console notifications to some webmasters asking them to "provide a manifest and high resolution favicon for" their web sites. I guess Google wants higher resolution favicons to show up in the Chrome browser. Google announced they have a new AdWords policy around ticket resellers. Specifically they now "require all event ticket resellers to be certified and to radically increase their transparency." Also today they announced a new ranking algorithm designed for mobile search. The company is calling it the “Speed Update,” and it will only impact a small percentage of queries, Google reiterated to us. Only pages that “deliver the slowest experience to users” will be impacted by this update, the company says. Most recently, Google has partnered with open-source content management system (CMS) WordPress, arguably the largest, with market share nearing 59 percent and an estimated 1/3 of all web content published through the platform.

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Search Ad Click Growth Falls; Ad Spend Rises

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Search ad click growth fell, ad spend rose 23% across Google, Bing, Yahoo as Bing and Yahoo saw search ad spend jump 32 percent over prior year in Q4 among Merkle's client base. Google spend growth slowed slightly from Q3. David Szetela, host of PPC Rockstars weighs in.
Plus, There’s a difference between indexing and ranking, Google gets all Amped UP over words, and Ranking in Google by aligning around search content

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Fighting Over How Google Treats Subdomains vs Subdirectories

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Today on Webcology our hosts bring you all the latest in SEO and Google David Harry. Harry is a senior SEO consultant with Verve Developments and the founder of the SEO Training Dojo. HuffPost has decided to shut down their entire contributor's platform, which was launched in May 2005. The platform was home to about 100,000 contributors, who covered everything from finance to relationships. In its place, HuffPost has decided to replace the contributor content with two new sections: Opinion and Personal, which are pretty self-explanatory. The New York Times reports that the contributor platform was only about 10 to 15 percent of its site traffic, so HuffPost isn’t losing a significant amount of traffic from the change. Digital agency ROAST has released a Voice Search Ranking Report which seeks to categorize and understand how Google processes and response to voice queries. It also tries to determine when Google Home uses featured snippets/Answer Box results and when it does not.The company used keyword analytics to compile a list of “616 key phrases in the UK featuring snippet answer boxes.” It then determined the top phrases by query volume across a range of verticals. The tests were run in November and compared Google Home and traditional search results.

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Publishers Face A New Challenge To The World

Thu, 18 Jan 2018 07:00:00 +0000

Facebook moves to ‘fix’ the News Feed by de-emphasizing commercial content. The company said it's trying to prevent posts from 'businesses, brands and media' from crowding out 'the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.Now, with Facebook changing its news feed to emphasize posts from friends and family, rather than those from media and brands, publishers face a new challenge to the world to which they most recently adapted. Facebook's changing algorithms will force publishers to adjust how they manage their online spaces. It likely will end – or at least reduce the effectiveness of – the common tactic of throwing every article up on the publisher's Facebook wall to see what sticks. Publishers will now have to put up content that produces conversation without using gimmicks to inflate clicks and comments. Google announced yesterday a new ranking algorithm designed specifically to downgrade the search rankings of really slow mobile pages. Google said "starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches."

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Experts Sharing The Best Single Piece Of Advice They've Gotten When Using SEO

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 07:00:00 +0000

The new Google Search Console is rolling out over the next few weeks to all webmasters and you will be able to access the new Google Search Console and the old one via links in the navigation. So you can play with both side by side, as Google keeps adding more and more features in the new version. Google's John Mueller said in a video hangout that the URLs Google finds in your XML sitemap files are often used to define your canonical URLs. Then they go over a list of experts sharing the best single piece of advice they've gotten when using SEO.

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Mid-December Search Ranking Algorithm Updates And Surprising Things Google Learned About Its Employees

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 20:23:00 +0000

Today on Webcology we ring in the new year with a whole new set of great breakthroughs. First the surprising thing Google learned about its employees, and what it means for today’s students. It turns out that is a gross simplification of what students need to know and be able to do, and some proof for that comes from a surprising source, Google. Also Google confirms mid-December search ranking algorithm updates. Google has confirmed what many in the search industry have seen over the past week, updates to their algorithm that are significantly shifting rankings in the SERPs. As the updates continue to roll out, early indications suggest disruptions in mobile SERPs, sites with no schema data those relying on doorway pages being most impacted.

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SEO 2017 End of Year Roundtable

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies are joined Jennifer Van Iderstyne, Gretchen Shelby-Dormer Jeremy Knauff and Patrick Stox for a SEO 2017 End of Year Roundtable. Google algorithm changes and search results, AI and voice search, mobile and machine learning and more.

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U.S. Regulators Ditch Net Neutrality Rules

Thu, 14 Dec 2017 07:00:00 +0000

U.S. regulators ditch net neutrality rules as legal battles loom, plus Google isn't just good for finding cat videos on the internet. The search giant's machine learning technology is also helping search the universe for planets outside our solar system. Plus breaking news on how Google Search Console beta adds 12+ months of data to performance reports.

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Net Neutrality Protests in Front of Verizon stores; Verizon Suing Mozilla for Dropping Yahoo as Default Search Engine

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Net Neutrality Protests in front of Verizon stores; Feud between Amazon and Google has Google cut YouTube stream to Amazon products.
If you’re in Zurich, John Meuller is thinking of doing another live hangout from Google’s Zurich offices. Contact him on Twitter @JohnMu to inquire.
Blog for Bribes could get you penalized
Roughly three years ago, Yahoo and Mozilla announced that Yahoo would be the default search engine on Firefox in the US. That relationship ended early when Mozilla released the much-improved Firefox Quantum browser last month, with Google as the default search provider.
So Verizon is suing Mozilla for dropping Yahoo as the default search engine but Mozilla is counter-suing suggesting Yahoo didn’t keep up search quality after its sale to Verizon.

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Google Expands Phone Call Organic Links And Twitter Expands To 280 Characters

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Today on Webcology our hosts Jim Hedger and Dave Davies go through all of your weekly headlines. Google Expands Phone Call Organic Links In Search Results. Back in March 2016, it was reported that Google was showing phone number extensions in the organic search results snippets. Well, that seems to now be expanding beyond the US and into other regions. Twitter is testing a 280 character limit, while suggesting that letting people say more will get them to tweet more. However, Twitter has every intention to roll it out to everyone if the test proves to be successful. So here’s what you need to know. The small nice-ish story Twitter had going for itself for the past few quarters was that, at the very least, its monthly active users were growing quarter-over-quarter. Also Hugh Hefner's swinging Los Angeles party pad will be forever remembered as the Playboy Mansion, where the adult entertainment mogul worked and played for more than 45 years. But the fate of the hedonistic haven following the 91-year-old Playboy founder’s death on Wednesday is now in the hands of its current owner — Hefner's next-door neighbor.

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From Googles New Features to Politics

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies motor through a litany of topics from Googles new features to Politics. , Google said they will not be moving sites to the mobile first index that are not ready for the mobile first index. Not yet at least. Google has once again been called out for algorithmically encouraging the spread of dubious, politically charged speculation and misinformation around a topical news event. In the latest instance of the algorithmic amplification of misinformation, the news event in question is a shooting in a Texas church on Sunday. Authorities have identified 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley as the perpetrator.Also, Sen. Al Franken delivered some of the sharpest criticism yet about the dangers of tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon during a speech on Wednesday, encouraging regulators, as well as lawmakers in both parties, to better police the market power of dominant online platforms.

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Google’s Focus on Local Search in Recent Years

Thu, 02 Nov 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Today on Webcology we go through a massive amount content from the internet world. Google’s focus on local search the past couple of years has some expecting local search traffic to play a heightened role for brick-and-mortar retailers this coming holiday. Google is now teeing up some new shopping features and reporting capabilities ahead of the holiday shopping season. We ask the questions Do Google Posts impact ranking? A case study Columnist Joy Hawkins shares the results of a case study to see whether Google Posts can move the needle for local search rankings. Also another Google local test, this one shows a single search result towards the bottom of the Google local knowledge card. So right above the new questions answers box you may see "search result" for the local knowledge card.

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MERGE Conference 2017 Recap

Thu, 26 Oct 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Dave Davies returns from the MERGE Conference 2017 in Orlando and welcomes aboard alongside co-host Jim Hedger:
Mary Davies (President of Beanstalk Internet Marketing, Inc.) who spoke on a panel about how to get traffic from Facebook, why you should boost posts, and how to properly manage Facebook campaigns.
Michelle Stinson-Ross (Gruen Digital Marketing Agency, VP of Marketing Sales)who spokeabout integrating social media into your online marketing campaigns to get more traffic and sales.
Dave spoke about responsive web design, AMP, and how to rank in search on mobile devices.

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Burying Hate Speech in Search Results

Thu, 19 Oct 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Lurie has recently posted a presentation entitled Burying Hate Speech in the SERPS, where he explains,"Google tries to handle hate sites, but they can't. Racist, anti-semitic, misogynistic, and other content find their way into the rankings every day. Lurie talks about two strategies I've used to push those sites down the rankings. Gord Downie, the lead singer for the beloved Canadian alt-rock band the Tragically Hip, died Tuesday at the age of 53. The cause was terminal brain cancer. Downie was diagnosed with brain cancer in December 2015, but didn't reveal his disease publicly until May 2016.

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Specific Ranking Changes in Google Mobile Results

Thu, 12 Oct 2017 19:51:00 +0000

Today on Webcology we start off with a Google Search Algorithm Ranking Update. We had a Google algorithm update over the weekend, starting probably late Friday, October 6th and rolling out over the weekend. Most took notice on Saturday, October 7th but the chatter is still fairly strong and will likely remain strong for a net couple of days. It turns out Google Mobile Ranking updated. A lot of folks are not just continuing with their chatter on the Google Columbus update but also now we are seeing specific ranking changes in Google mobile results. It is hard to tell if the chatter is specific to mobile or desktop or both. But when you look at the tracking tools, a lot of them are showing huge swings specific to the mobile Google search results. Also, Google Suggests They Use Off-Site Sentiment Analysis For Ranking as well. Gary Illyes from Google was quoted by several SEOs as saying at the State of Search event that Google uses a form of sentiment analysis for search rankings. He said that Google looks at off-site sentiment to find supporting signals about the quality of a site. He also said that can mean both positive and negative off-site sentiment. The quotes suggest that this may be taken from social signals as well as other website mentions. This is not just about links, Gary Illyes said.

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Google is Indeed Testing The Mobile First Index

Thu, 05 Oct 2017 19:52:23 +0000

Today on Webcology we talk about everything need to know up and coming in internet toys. Plus we touch a very cool way a band used facebook live delay. Google's John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a hangout at the 15:38 mark that Google is indeed testing the mobile first index in the live search results. With this test, Google is not only looking to see how much it impacts the searchers and current rankings but they are also building new classifiers for debugging purposes. Have a session idea for SMX West? They would love to hear from you, especially if your idea is about e-commerce marketing. SMX wants your input to help them plan the upcoming SMX West conference, which will be taking place on March 13-15, 2018. Specifically, if you have a great idea for a session that you think should be on the agenda. This is almost too amazing! Using the delayed audio and video from a Facebook Live, the band managed to create a loop version of their song "Bear Claws." It's a little easier to understand if you actually see it in action, but essentially, the band performs for a Facebook Live feed that's then projected behind them. They manage to sync up and perform with the same delayed feed a few seconds later, and as the song progresses, it gets more and more interesting.

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Is Twitter On The Decline?

Thu, 28 Sep 2017 19:28:00 +0000

Today on Webcology the guys get into a bunch of different topics to keep you in the know. They speak about Google expanding phone call organic links in search results, Google was showing phone number extensions in the organic search results snippets. Well, that seems to now be expanding beyond the US and into other regions. Is Twitter on the decline? The rest of Twitter’s business looked more or less fine, but it seems that Wall Street was still relying on Twitter to continue that even small user growth. Its revenue is still falling, coming down to $574 million as its advertising business continues to decline. Then Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't seem too happy that President Donald Trump bashed his company in a tweet Wednesday morning.

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HTML Changes Without Content Changes

Fri, 15 Sep 2017 18:43:49 +0000

Today on Webcology the guys talk about the Equifax leak, Google Brain, and changing your HTML to affect your search rankings. Sometimes you see the most obvious questions posted to Googlers and you think, hmm, I wonder how many others don't think this is obvious. In any event, when you change your content and HTML on a page, it can and often does, impact your rankings for better or worse. HTML changes without content changes can also do the same but it depends what exactly you change on the page. It was not 100% clear if he was talking about just training the models or if it directly impacts the live search results. It might just be used for building new models later based on the feedback they get back from these models. Google has time and time again said that they do not use click data for ranking purposes because it is too easy to spam and too noisy. Equifax has been intensely investigating the scope of the intrusion with the assistance of a leading, independent cybersecurity firm to determine what information was accessed and who has been impacted. We know that criminals exploited a U.S. website application vulnerability. The vulnerability was Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638. We continue to work with law enforcement as part of our criminal investigation, and have shared indicators of compromise with law enforcement.

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The Number One, Most Important, Search Ranking Factor

Thu, 07 Sep 2017 18:39:00 +0000

Today on Webcology the guys talk about everything from Google to mobile web development. Ever wonder what the number one, most important, search ranking factor is in Google's algorithms? Is it links? Is it content? Is it a special hidden meta tag? Nope, it is none of that. It is awesomeness.Yep, that is what John Mueller of Google said, the number one, most important ranking factor Google uses to rank search results is awesomeness. Google is offering a mobile web developer certification. for the low-low price of just 99 dollars! If you need the self-assurance of Google to vouching for you as a competent mobile web developer, this is for you. You can pay the $99 fee to take an exam and get patted on the back with an electronic badge. Once you receive the electronic badge you can add it to your resume, display it on your website, or add it to your online profiles.

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The Latest and Greatest in Search Engine Optimization

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 19:15:18 +0000

On Today's episode of Webcology Jim and Dave talk about all the latest and greatest in search engine optimization. Google upgrades flight and hotel search to provide price grid views as well as upgrading the Panda algorithm. They also talk about the recent statistic on how many people illegally watched the Connor McGreggor Floyd Mayweather fight on various social media accounts. As well as Researchers teaching AI to write totally believable fake reviews, and the implications are terrifying.

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The First Digital Search Summit

Thu, 24 Aug 2017 19:38:04 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Search Engine Optimization SEO Consultant Bill Hartzer. He fills us on a recent announcement of the first Digital Search Summit event, being held as a part of the Merge! Show, this Fall in Orlando, Florida. He tells us how he is working with conference organizers of Merge! Show to put together a great set of digital marketing and search marketing sessions, presented by world-class speakers.

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Online Marketing Management And Reporting Platform

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 19:18:00 +0000

Jim and Dave welcome the ‎CEO at Spartan Media Jeremy Knauff and Jon Henshaw, the Director of Digital Marketing and Product Evangelist for TapClicks and Raven Tools. Jon is also the Co-founder of Raven Internet Marketing Tools, an online marketing management and reporting platform that was acquired by TapClicks in 2017.
Jon talks about trying to build custom WordPress themes that are as fast as AMP, plus a roundtable discussion of some recent SEO headlines.

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Conversion Optimization Consultant and Copywriter Joel Klettke

Thu, 10 Aug 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Joel Klettke gave an awesome presentation at Mozcon 2017 covering how to structure and develop content using what your customers tell you. He says the usual path and layout can be great but can also lead to a boring, useless page. He started a task to create great content and with the understanding that every conversion is a conversation. He warns that we focus on demographics but too little on motivation. Motivations guides us. If you want check out his presentation just click HERE

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Artificial Intelligence and The Truth About Mobile-First Indexing

Thu, 03 Aug 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Artificial Intelligence and The Truth About Mobile-First Indexing as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcome back Cindy Krum and Emily Grossman from MobileMoxie. Cindy calls back her MozCon 2017 presentation on The Truth About Mobile-First Indexing.
She explains how Mobile-first indexing is REALLY about cloud-first indexing (URL’s are not required). With all the new devices, many without browsers or with tiny screens URLs are irrelevant.

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Back-to-school tips for Bing Shopping Campaigns; Google has dropped Google Instant Search

Thu, 27 Jul 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Back-to-school tips for Bing Shopping CampaignsGoogle confirms testing auto-play videos in the search resultsGoogle adds vacation rentals filter to hotel search resultsGoogle adds new SOS Alerts to search and Maps as part of its crisis response featuresGoogle officially changes Sitelinks design to carousel formatGoogle has dropped Google Instant SearchGoogle intros new call bid adjustments in AdWordsFacebook is going to let publishers start charging readers to view storiesNPR survey: Americans love their smart speakers, 42% call them ‘essential’

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Google Search Console Sees Changes to Impressions and Position Data

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Google Search Console Sees Changes to Impressions and Position Data as Google made some changes to make searches with lower positions more accurate, which is reflected in the changes.
Google has posted an update in their Data Anomalies list, as well as including a notation when you look at your data in Search Analytics within Search Console.

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Google Search Console Service Interruption and the Future of Retail

Thu, 13 Jul 2017 07:00:00 +0000

New Google search console users who signed up for the service between June 21 and July 10, 2017 might notice that the data associated with those twenty days has gone missing.
Greg Stirling covered the Future of Retail report from Walker Sands which notes that - 19% of consumers made a purchase using a voice controlled device in the last 12months. - Millenials however 37% always or often shop online using voice controlled devices.- 43% of this group made a purchase using voice in the last twelve months. - 80% of all surveyed said they had not made a voice powered purchase and - 48% said they were unlikely to ever do so
Message with Customers in Google My Business
Rand Fishkin Retiring! Early next year Rand Fishkin is stepping back from his role with the company he and his mother Gillian Muessig founded 16 years ago. Rand started SEOMoz back in 2002 and stepped down as CEO in 2014 to be replaced by current CEO Sarah Bird. Rand will remain Chairman of the Board and will assume the volunteer role of Moz Associate.
Plus, commentary on Battle for the Net – Day of Action and congrats to Danny Goodwin, the new Editor in Chief at Search Engine Journal!

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Danny Sullivan: After 21 Years it's Time For a Change

Thu, 29 Jun 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Today on Webcology Jim is Riding Solo, well sort of. Kristine Schachinger sits in with Jim to talk about Google getting hit with a fine from the EU, and SearchEngineLand Founder and SMX Conference Chair Danny Sullivan Retiring.After 21 years running sites about and covering digital and search marketing, it’s time for a change for Danny Sullivan. He's becoming an advisor to Third Door Media, a shift from my position as chief content officer. Third Door Media is the company that he cofounded with the CEO Chris Elwell, VP of programming Chris Sherman and VP of sales Sean Moriarty. It publishes the Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Digital Marketing Depot and MarTech Today sites and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech conferences. European Union regulators slapped Google with a record €2.4 billion ($2.7 billion) antitrust fine on Tuesday, the latest broadside fired at big American tech companies doing business in the region. The European Commission found that the U.S. tech giant denied "consumers a genuine choice" by using its search engine to unfairly steer them to its own shopping platform. Regulators said that Google must change its behavior within 90 days or face additional penalties.

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Digital Knowledge for the Intelligent Era

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:36:00 +0000

Today on Webcology the guys are joined by the ‎VP of Industry Insights with Yext, Duane Forrester. They talk about how the Launch of Yext App Directory Makes it Even Easier for Brands to Structure Digital Knowledge for the Intelligent Era. Duane has 20 years of direct search and digital marketing experience, including content development, planning ad campaigns, managing ad buys, running e-mail and social media programs and more. Extensive content planning and creation experience. Author of two business books about digital marketing and conversion optimization, published by McGraw-Hill. During his career, he gained experience in domain development, business development, audience development and public relations.

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Reinventing your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Today on Webcology the Guys are joined by Mike Dover, a very special guest to the show. Mike Dover is a writer, educator, technologist, and sometimes humourist. Most importantly, Mike is a modern thinker’s thinker. Many of you might be familiar with Mike’s first book, Wikibrands, Reinventing your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace coauthored with Sean Moffitt and forwarded by his long-term mentor Don Tapscott. (yeah, Mike is a protégée of Don Tapscott. For technologists, that’s something serious, somewhat a kin to being Mcluhan’s TA. Wikibrands challenged its readers to make their businesses and brands more empathetic and engaging, to be driven by a process designed to constantly deliver a better customer (or user) experience while sustaining the attention of the market and keeping it fun for the owners. After a truly bizarre week of truly spectacular PR disasters and the ham fisted or tone deaf responses from Bombardier to Pepsi, the White House and United Airways the value of Mike and Sean’s work couldn’t be clearer. Does anyone here remember the early days of the commercial Internet? You know, the web from 1993 and ’94? Do you remember the instant power, the idealism, the sense that we could suddenly access everything at once and the wicked wild knowledge that everything henceforth would be very very different? It was literally awesome. As we jammed on the Information Super Highway and suddenly moved super-fast, we failed to notice the digital signboard above the overpass which quite clearly read, “All hope abandon ye who enter here”. And now look what has happened. That’s uhhh, that’s where Mike wants to take us tonight.

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Google Algos Share Useful Data With Each Other; PushCrew and Evergage at the 2017 Conversion Conference

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Google’s algos share useful data with each other; How featured snippets steal significant traffic from the top organic result; If you want to see it as Google sees it, render in search console; News being treated with your money or your life quality rating, according to new Google guidelines. Plus, Dave shares more interviews with PushCrew and Evergage at the 2017 Conversion Conference.

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CRO tactics for making money with YouTube videos & ads

Thu, 25 May 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Following his Conversion Conference 2017 presentation (CRO tactics for making money with YouTube videos ads) Dave Davies catches up with Greg Jarboe from SEO-PR. . They discuss conversion rate optimization tactics you should test on your YouTube videos and ads. Plus, Over-optimization is a thing. So are link-schemes.

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FCC Votes To Begin Rollback Of Net Neutrality Regulations

Thu, 18 May 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Dave Davies speaks with Marty Greif , EVP of SiteTuners on location at Conversion Conference who spoke on a session called Ouch! – Avoiding Common CRO Mistakes for Marketing Executives. The show mourns the sudden death of 90's grunge rocker and lead singer of Sound Garden, Chris Cornell. Today the FCC Votes To Begin Rollback Of Net Neutrality Regulations, Jim talks about the pros and cons of the net neutrality rollback and what it will do to our internet.

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The Difference Between Spammy Links and Unnatural Links

Thu, 11 May 2017 07:00:00 +0000

On todays episode of Webcology Jim and Dave talk about the difference between spammy links and unnatural link. They touch on how it's not good SEO to always agree with Google, because they’re often wrong. The conversation of net neutrality is started based on the recent comments by HBO host John Oliver. Last but not least they go over the recent Landy Awards.

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Assessing The Authority of Web Pages and "Not secure" warnings

Thu, 04 May 2017 19:46:00 +0000

Today on Webcology Jim and Dave talk about how Google Chrome will add new ‘Not secure’ warnings later this year. Google assessing the ‘authority’ of web pages and has no single authority metric but rather uses a bucket of signals to determine authority on a page-by-page basis. Also Google Won’t Demote Pages For Linking to a 404 Page.

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Google Project Owl Fighting Fake News

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Google takes on Fake News and False information search results with Project Owl to launch a new emphasis on authoritative content to improve search quality. Jim and Dave speak on the disturbance in Google's advertising algorithms: currently Google raters are scrambling to adjust algorithms to no longer show unhelpful, offensive, or downright horrific content among ads. With this, Google’s army of live raters just became a militia. Google is busy launching new software like the new Google Assistant SDK, that can build hardware prototypes that include the Google Assistant, like a self-built robot or a voice-enabled smart mirror. Google advertisers start getting claims notices after parked domain PPC case settled for $22.5mm, the settlement stems from a case that dates back to 2008 about Google ads showing on error pages and parked domains. Jim and Dave discuss the huge drop on AMP pages over the last week in Google Analytics. Surprising to all, Google says 15% of all search queries are "new" to them - is it due to voice queries or non-english language queries?

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Google Reducing, Restricting, and Hiring

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 20:02:21 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss social media imaging guidelines, YouTube's reduced subscriber criteria for their live stream feature, how Google will be launching "Google Hire" a job search service, and Google's 1210 acre land grab in Reno for future data center site. Jim and Dave also touch on the Google Earth's guided tours, importance of content hierarchy and website navigation, and Google's plan for a built in ad-blocker for Chrome. They go on to say Google offering its own ad-blocker in Chrome that targets specific types of ads that users find particularly annoying (like pop-overs and auto-playing audio and video) may cause those users to never seek out another third-party ad-blocking extension. They discuss how Google did not ban Infowars and how the right wing conspiracy machine had it wrong again, Ripoff Report subverting Google content takedowns through changing URLs, and Search Engine Land's columnist Megan Hannay's article on local reach in a post-rank world.

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Most Important Ranking Factors for Local

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 07:00:00 +0000

A survey breaks down what those local SEOs believe are the most important ranking factors for both local packs and localized organic search results. Apparently Burger King listens to the show. LOTS OF H1s for everyone. Everyone gets a H1. Domain age important in ranking, Meuller says NO.

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Where do PAs get all their information?

Mon, 10 Apr 2017 00:03:33 +0000

Today on Webcology Google’s Mobile first index unlikely to launch before 2018. Gary Illes, Next10conf. Remember, Gary is the person who predicted the coming Penguin update, starting in autumn 2015. They think its time to update the SEO Periodic Table. Every 2years Search Engine Land updates the table. Lastly, The future is PASO (Personal Assistance Search Optimization) – John E. Lincoln. Digital marketers should know where PAs get their information. If you accept the premise that the future of SEO is all about PAs and personal assistant search optimization, then you should be asking yourself the following question: “Where do PAs get all their information?”

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Significant Privacy Concerns And The New Era of Technology

Thu, 30 Mar 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how the Trump Administration and Republican Congress are allowing ISPs to monitor, manipulate, and sell your private information - from financial, medical, social security number, browsing history, mobile app usage, content of emails and online chats to third parties that place the highest big without your consent and with no opt-out feature and how Canada is taking a different approach in this matter. They then discuss Kelsey Jones leaving Search Engine Journal to focus on her own business, MoxieDot and StoryShout. They follow up with the now free Google Optimize 360 and the impact of A/B testing; and how Google Home is integrating new features like August, Wink, LIFX, TP-link, Rachio, and Vivint. Jim and Dave talk more on the new era of technology and how 2018 will be so different from the world we know today in 2017.

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Growing Social Networks And Issues With Google Adsense

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 07:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the security side of Facebook, mobile applications, the difference between the Facebook App and Facebook Messenger. Looking at the sheer number of unique identified user in the Facebook universe, how 40% of all people on earth are using Facebook, and Whatsapp being second largest social networking, followed by Youtube and others in the top ten.

They also respond to ads showing beside negatively associated videos and pages, which leads to a discussion on ads pertaining to good and evil and the on-going challenge of Google Adsense with their ad placement beside existing global issues.

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State of Searcher Behavior Revealed

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 07:00:00 +0000

State of Searcher Behavior Revealed; PayPal shares slide after Google announces rival email feature which leads to some commentary about Peter Theil. Google Allo can reveal to your friends what you’ve searched. Google: Page Layout Algorithm/Penalty Is Still Important. Google Tackles Fake News, Inaccurate Content & Hate Sites in Rater Guidelines Update

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Google Ranking Signals Changes or AdWords Expanded Text Ads

Thu, 09 Mar 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Weight of Google Ranking Signals Changes Based on Search; Internal Links to About Us, Contact Us & TOS Pages for SEO; Long mobile load brings bigger bounces; Google Home may get support for multiple user accounts. AdWords Expanded Text Ads could get even longer with second description line test. Dwell Time: Does It Affect SEO?

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Technology in Conversation and Uber With George Freitag

Thu, 23 Feb 2017 20:20:00 +0000

12 year Google veteran Mailie Ohye announced Tuesday she would be leaving former Developer Programs Tech Lead. The carousel is Mailie’s most recent contribution to the front-face of Google’s index. They talk about how Uber users get message about Susan Fowler when trying to delete their account. The use of technology to improve conversation online. Also how Google just cracked one of the building blocks of web encryption. And George Freitag, Local Search Evangelist at Moz, chats with Jim and Dave about local search and the connection of their local service with Google's newly released API.

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Google's Latest Features Jonathan Allen President of Longneck and Thunderfoot

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 21:06:06 +0000

Jim and Dave are joined by Jonathan Allen. Co-Founder, President, Longneck and Thunderfoot. The guys talk about Google's latest search features, virtual reality in google and new features in google maps. Plus they touch on top ranked local businesses based upon quality measures.

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Voice First Search and Machine Learning

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies dive into the world of AI and artificial intelligence talking about voice first search and machine learning with Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting. Plus, we get a update on the issue of net neutrality with Ernesto Falcon, Legislative Counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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How to do Reputation Marketing with Rhea Drysdale

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave talk to Rhea Drydale from Outspoken Media about brand and reputation marketing. Rhea presented at MozCon 2016 speaking about How to do Reputation Marketing. Rhea explained what the role of a reputation marketer looks like, what analytics to track, and why everyone should be investing in their organization’s reputation to diversify and reduce marketing spend and other high business costs.

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Google Plus Could Surpass Facebook for Social Sharing; No More Brainteasers for Google Job Applicants

Sun, 29 Jan 2017 05:05:06 +0000

James Gandolfini Death, Build a Good Site not Links; Why Google Stopped Asking Job Applicants to Answer Impossible Brainteasers; Will Google Plus overtake Facebook for social sharing?

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SEOs: Break Google Rules to Get Top Rankings? Google Slaps Another Guest Blog Network PostJoint

Sun, 29 Jan 2017 05:04:41 +0000

Search Engine Optimization Companies: Break Google Rules to Get Top Rankings?Google Slaps Another Guest Blog Network: PostJoint; Also, returning guest Kristine Schachinger joins Jim and guest host David Harry to discussthe serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library called Heartbleed. Michelle Stinson-Ross of Offers.com discusses social media branding and tells us how she thoughtherposting format on a Facebook brand page she manages had changed.
Related articles across the web

Google Launches Media Tools For Reporters and Journalists, Seeks Searcher Satisfaction
Gmail Results in Google SERPs; Suspicious Facebook Pages
Breaking Down Googles New Hummingbird Algorithm Change
Guest Blogging is Dead ? Hackers, Eric Snowdon and All Things Privacy
Cutts Talks SEO 'Myths,' Says To Avoid 'Group Think'
Google Starts Blocking Access to Paid Search Keyword Data; Matt Cutts Controversial Interview Post
The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging

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Google Instant Apps Limited Testing Now Underway

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Google Instant Apps are the abbreviated applications would be streamlined enough to start working immediately after users open them with a URL tap, temporarily loading the full software's functionality without going through the rigmarole of a traditional Play Store installation. After half a year, the Android team has opened up a select few Instant Apps to live testing. Cindy Krum, Emily Grossman and Ashley Berman Hale from MobileMoxie fill us in.

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DuckDuckGo Reaches 10 Million Searches; Matt Cutts Retires From Google

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 08:00:00 +0000

DuckDuckGo Reaches 10 Million Searches; Matt Cutts Retires From Google, and chooses to head up the US Digital Service. Plus, Google Home units arguing over which is human and which is robot, Google Killing off Google +, and an interesting Google patent - an extension on what they're doing with cars.

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Google Confirms Mobile Intrusive Interstitials Penalty

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Google confirms rolling out the mobile intrusive interstitials penalty. This penalty only impacts intrusive interstitials that happen directly after going from a Google mobile search result to a specific page. Bad Content = Bad SEO. Though less is not more, more is not necessarily better. Ryan Shelley from Search Engine Land reports on Why SEO and Lousy content don’t mix.

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A Drop In Google Link Counts In Search Console; SEO Responsible for Websites Targeted For Hacking?

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Some May See A Drop In Google Link Counts In Search Console; Google: SEO Is One Of The Primary Reasons Websites Are Targeted For Hacking. Plus Jim and Dave discuss an interesting google patent- an extension on what they're doing with cars.

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SEO AS Dirty As Ever; On-Page SEO Tips and Tricks

Thu, 29 Dec 2016 08:00:00 +0000

SEO AS Dirty As Ever. As much as the SEO industry wants to grow up and shed the shady reputation it had in the past, it seems many don’t want to change and still cast a shadow over the industry." Plus, and On-Page SEO Tips and Tricks with Jon Henshaw from Raven Tools.

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Featured Snippets and a World Without SERPs

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Rob Bucci, the founder and CEO of STAT Search Analytics, chats with Jim Hedger and Dave Davies about featured snippets and the future of search. Vivid Seats SEO Director Bryson Meunier talks to Jim and Dave about search in a world where there is no SERP at all (Echo, Google Home, etc.)

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Users and their Impact on Search

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Users and their impact on search, the new SERP features and voice search discusses as Jim Hedger and Davies welcome ‎SEO & Content Architect at Moz Britney Muller and Freelance Journalist, Content Marketer, and Storyteller Cara Harshman.

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Link Acquisition and Link Building : What Has Changed?

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Link Acquisition and Link Building : What Has Changed? Jim Boykin and Ann Smarty with Internet Marketing Ninjas explains how changes to Google like the numerous and continuous releases of their Penguin Update have made a significant impact. We learn about the positive changes Google has made to help Identify link networks and private networks.

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Conversion Optimization On The Fly

Thu, 17 Nov 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Conversion Optimization with a focus on things you can do on the fly as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with performance marketer at Unbounce, Duane Brown. Duane works in performance marketing at Unbounce. Past work includes Jack Wills, ASOS, TELUS and KPMG. He's also a wanderluster having traveled & eaten his way through 34 countries.

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Understanding the Google Mobile First Index Rollout

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 08:00:00 +0000

Understanding the Google Mobile First Index Rollout from Building Indexable Progressive Web Apps, lots of updates to Android phones and aggregated webmaster tools to better leverage search data. Jim and Dave welcome Cindy Krum, Emily Grossman and Ashley Berman Hale from MobileMoxie to discuss all of the changes.

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Augmented and Virtual Reality with Tracy Ingram

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Talking Augmented and Virtual Reality as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with Tracy Ingram, the Founder / CEO of BioscanR

Tracy Ingram has over 10 years experience in Bioinformatics and has imported technology from all over the world, specializing in data acquisition and pattern recognition from microdata. As former Director of Research for a military contractor he worked on developing adaptive technologies. He is also cofounder of Healthcamp Florida, a nonprofit organization focused on identifying innovative medical technologies.

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Wordpress and SEO with David Vogelpohl

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Google launches affiliate location ad extensions Why crawl budget and URL scheduling might impact rankings in website migrations.? Plus, Jim and Dave chat Wordpress and SEO with David Vogelpohl, the Vice President of Web Strategy at WP Engine.

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10 Years of Podcasting and Dr. Pete Meyers

Thu, 13 Oct 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave celebrate 10 years of Podcasts, going back to their first broadcast of the Alternative on October 12th 2006. Plus, they speak with Dr. Peter J. Meyers (AKA "Dr. Pete") , a Marketing Scientist for Seattle-based Moz, where he works with the marketing and data science teams on product research and data-driven content.

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Mistakes Smart Web Designers Make That Can Kill SEO

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Jeremy Knauff, CEO of Spartan Media, speaks with Jim and Dave about some of the mistakes smart web designers make that can kill SEO, and how to avoid or fix them. They also cover Google’s recent Penguin 4.0 update, the future of search, and a topic that Jim and Jeremy are passionate about, PTSD in the veteran and first-responder community.

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On-Page SEO Tips and Tricks with Jon Henshaw

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Jon Henshaw, Co-founder and President of Raven Internet Marketing Tools speaks with Jim and Dave following a recent webinar on On-Page SEO Tips and Tricks he hosted with WPEngine's David Vogelpohl. They also talk about some of the highlights coming out of MozCon 2016.

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Google Penguin Launch Announcement Imminent

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000

More on Google Penguin Update as Google: is said to be Working On The Penguin Launch Announcement. That and more are discussed as Jim Hedger welcomes Jenny Halasz and Thom Craver.

Jenny Halasz is President and Founder of JLH Marketing, a marketing consulting firm focused on developing scalable acquisition strategies for clients through PPC, implementing technical website improvements and content marketing through SEO, and giving clients the insights needed to measure success through analytics. Thom Craver is a renowned SEO and Web analytics expert as well as an an accomplished speaker, instructor and soon to be author.

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Long March of the Google Penguin

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave ponder if it's safe to project the Long March of the Penguins is underway. We can hem-haw and hedge around it but I think we're on solid ice here.

Full follow links in widgets and signature links placed by third party developers. (why exactly is Google giving this notice at this time? [again])

Plus, the demise of ClickZ/SES, Star Trek's 50th anniversary and why Apples and audio-jacks are like Blackberrys and keyboards

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SpaceX Test Mishap Sets Back Facebook’s African Expansion Project

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000

SpaceX Test Mishap to set back Facebook’s African Expansion Project as the Amos-6 satellite which Facebook had booked time on to beam Internet signals to sub-Saharan Africa, a region Facebook was aggressively trying to expand into to advance both humanitarian and business concerns.

Pokemon Gone and the Lifespan of Fads as Washington Post did an interesting piece on the life of fads today. Pokemon Go has faded faster than virtually every other Internet game (Farmville, candycrush, etc...) in history.Plus: Livetime Google Results being AMPED up? EU (EWWWW) and Apple/Google Tax Dodging; Copyright in EU – The right to aggregate might become quite costly.

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Google Cracking Down on Interstitials on Mobile Pages.

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Google cracking down on interstitials on mobile pages. Yelp is not happy. Crackdown starts in January.

Google listed three types of interstitials that “would not be affected by the new signal” if “used responsibly.” Those types are:• Interstitials that appear to be in response to a legal obligation, such as for cookie usage or for age verification.• Login dialogs on sites where content is not publicly indexable. For example, this would include private content such as email or unindexable content that is behind a paywall.• Banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space and are easily dismissible. For example, the app install banners provided by Safari and Chrome are examples of banners that use a reasonable amount of screen space.

Plus, ScribbleLive buys automated SEO platform Linkdex; Because 85% of mobile search results are already mobile friendly, Google is dropping the mobile friendly tag in mobile search results ; Bots killed Keyword Planner and a number of other Google Tools; Apparently many tools using Keyword Planner are still delivering detailed numbers and stats so they were not affected

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Moz Layoffs, Gawkers Googbye, and the NSA hacked

Thu, 18 Aug 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Moz LayoffsThe search marketing world was stunned late yesterday with the announcement Moz is laying off 28% of its staff in a move to become profitable. Moz CEO Sarah Bird made an emotional blog post yesterday titled, “Moz is Doubling Down on Search” outlining a renewed focus on core SEO related products in the Moz Toolbox such as rank tracking, keyword research, local search listings, duplicate management, onpage items, web crawl, and links analysis. Left unmentioned in her post was the community Moz had created and sustained for several years. In fact, all layoffs happened in the community divisions of Moz, including the extraordinary Jennifer Sable Lopez. Rand Fishkin later tweeted this was about getting the company revenue-right. For Moz and the extremely tight internal community they’ve built, this must be an awful day; even more so for those let go, not because of their performance but because of a management decision to marshal their energies in a more focused direction. In the long run, if Moz can make itself profitable without outside funding, it may well turn out to be the wisest decision Moz has ever made. For the time being, it feels like there’s a hole in the entire SEO community this morning. Big love to Moz, the Mozzers, and the now expanded Moz Alumni. Thanks for all the contributions over the years and we all look forward to seeing what comes next. Gawker to cease publishing next week. The 14 year old online tabloid was targeted by billionaire PayPal founder Peter Theil in a massive series of direct and indirect legal actions. Gawker Media, the parent company that owned Gawker was sold last week to Univision for $135million. They publish six other online magazines; Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel. Details on what will happen to those properties or to Gawker’s archives have yet to be announced. The Univision purchase is pending a decision to allow the sale which is expected today from a Manhattan bankruptcy court.NSA Hacked! In an ironic and somewhat dangerous role reversal, the National Security Agency, otherwise known as America’s cyber-spooks were hacked, quite heavily. A group calling itself the Shadow Brokers are asking for 1million Bitcoins, which is about $570million US in an auction to release the best cyberweapons and release a treasure-trove of secret files. The hack happened to a division of the NSA known as the Equation Group which, according to Kaspersky security, has been active for over 20 years. In a report published by Kaspersky in 2015, the Equation group was described as “a threat actor that surpasses anything known in terms of complexity and sophistication of techniques, and that has been active for almost two decades,” The group is thought to be responsible for the infamous Stuxnet attack on Iran’s centrifuges in 2007.

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Marissa Mayer and her Future with Yahoo

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 19:30:00 +0000

Marissa Mayer and her Future with Yahoo and how she Can Cash Out of Yahoo to the Tune of 123 Million; No loss of PageRank for 301 or 302 redirects; Use Excel Plug-In Analytics Edge to get ALL landing page data from Search Console.; Top 20 Weird Google Questions as Identified by UK Firm Digitaloft ; Reddit to allow marketers to sponsor user posts.

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4 Daily Habits of Successful SEOs

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 07:00:00 +0000

4 daily habits of successful SEOs

1 – Read the News
2 - Review all analytics tools to figure out what is and isn’t working 3 – Take hands-on action.
4 – Constant skills upgrading requires constant tinkering

Plus, Arianna Huffington stepping down from HuffPost. Huffington said the new health and wellness company she is launching, Thrive Global, demands her full-time attention. Thrive will start in November.

Links still Crucial, as explained by Jason deMers in Search Engine Land; Google Brain teamtaking questions in a massive AMA at Reddit right now!

Also, Google Ranking Factors 2016, ###a>

- Content Links Are the Two Most Important Ranking Signals
- RankBrain - Third Most Important Factor
- Click-Through Rate (CTR) is Not a Ranking Factor
- Google Confirms 301, 302, 3xx redirects Do Not Lose PageRank Value
- Local Business Ranking Factors
- Mobile-Friendliness - a Ranking Signal on Mobile Searches
- Google Now Ranks Mobile Page Speed Separately
- Google Updates Search Quality Guidelines

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Google Giveth and Google Taketh Away?

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Google's possible reversal of last week's algorithm update; Instagram's new killer feature that copies Snapchat; Explaining impressions, position, and clicks; No loss of PageRank for any 3xx redirect; How Google Treats Subdomains vs. Subdirectories in 2016; Singular and plural words can be different in Google's eyes; Disavow file and manual action reinclusion requests have to be on canonical URL; AMP in general SEPS; AMP pages no longer need structured data to be valid in Google Search Console.

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Marissa Mayer and her Future with Yahoo

Thu, 28 Jul 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Machine Learning and Trying to Predict Google Rankings

Thu, 21 Jul 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Machine Learning and Trying to Predict Google Rankings as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with JR Oaks, Director of Strategy for Consultwebs, an agency that specializes in online marketing for law firms throughout the United States and internationally. JR wrote a piece in Search Engine Land on machine learning, "An experiment in trying to predict Google Rankings"

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WME Training Founder David Ogletree on AdWords, PPC and SEO

Thu, 14 Jul 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Air BnB taking housing stock out of communities; Pokemon Go – Pokemongo • WTF? Marketing boom for small businesses with lures or gyms; Amazing for augmented reality applications. Will Penguin Ever Launch? Poll being taken at SE RoundTable.. Pop-ups asPrimary Content? Meurlerbe (Maybe) Google’s new Showcase Shopping feature to display paid shopping ads in new and improved ways. Plus, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with WME Training founder David Ogletree to talk about AdWords,PPC, SEO and his love of training.

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SEO: As Dirty As Ever?

Thu, 07 Jul 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Search engine optimization has built credibility over the years, but spammers and black-hat practitioners still give it a bad name. Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss a recentSearch Engine Land article that says, "As much as the SEO industry wants to grow up and shed the shady reputation it had in the past, it seems many don’t want to change and still cast a shadow over the industry. For every company doing things right, it seems there are many more who have not updated their practices or still want to take shortcuts."

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Google Keyword Planner Restricted?

Thu, 30 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Big Change to Keyword Planner: Google Restricts Access to Those With AdWords Accounts as reports say reports that Google has turned off access to those that use the tool without also being an active advertiser with a currently active campaign. Plus, Google Displays Lyrics in Search Results; Songwriters & Publishers Earn Revenue; Plus, AMP is Not Currently a Ranking Factor as Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, opened up SEJ Summit Chicago with a twenty-minute presentation about what AMP is, why publishers should be using it, and what the future of AMP is.

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Gaining Demographic Data In Relation to Facebook and Email Lists

Thu, 23 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Gaining Demographic Data In Relation to Your Facebook and Email Lists as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcome WordStream Founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Kim .

In his Conversion Conference 2016 presentation, “4 Ridiculously Awesome Ways That Search & Social Ads Magnify CRO by 3-5x”. He begins with the note: small changes usually result in small changes. Sometimes you need to make bold decisions to get significant results. He further notes that it’s important to know what a conversion is. A lead that doesn’t convert actually costs money so if a change drives unqualified leads it’s not a good change.

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Why Would Microsoft Buy LinkedIn?

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Why Would Microsoft Buy LinkedIn? Google search analytics report adds the ability to compare queries. Google just made a key AI investment in Europe, tax investigations be damned. Super polite grandma's Google search gets results — and then some. Her courteous search request has gone viral — it even made Google smile. Increased Increased Crawl Rate Not Sign of Google Panda or Algorithmic Issue Being Lifted. Vanity Keyword TLD Domain Names Do Not Get Ranking Boost

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Importance of Infographics with Brian Wallace

Thu, 09 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Importance of Infographics with NowSourcing Founder, Infographic Scholar,Entrepreneur, Google SMB Advisor and VR Futurist Brian Wallace talks to Jim Hedger and Dave Davies about his work with infographics. NowSourcing provides Internet marketing services specializing in infographics, social media marketing, pay per click management and online reputation.

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Facebook Looking For a SEO; Google Separate Mobile Search Iindex

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Facebook looking for a SEO; Life is just a fantasy or perhaps just a sim ; Elon Musk: There's a 'one in billions' chance our reality is not a simulation Google still working on separate mobile search index; Next Mobile Friendly Update Includes Page Speed; Coming in Months; You can probably ignore scraper sites links but, if you’re battling low quality links, don’t ignore them...says Gary Ilys at Google Dance Japan

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Bill Hartzer and the Move to Advice Local

Thu, 26 May 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Advice Local announced world-renowned search engine optimization (SEO) expert, Bill Hartzer, will join their corporate team to lead Agency Services. Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with Hartzer about the move.

"I'm very excited about joining Advice Local," Hartzer said. "I get to bring my local and technical SEO experience to this progressive digital marketing agency. I look forward to helping companies, from small businesses to large enterprise organizations, become more visible on the Web and get a better ROI from their online marketing efforts."

Hartzer is a frequent speaker and expert discussion panel participant at various search engine marketing and Internet marketing conferences. He has more than 20 years of website marketing, SEO and domain name experience; and he has been recognized internationally for his groundbreaking research on marketing using new gTLD names.

Hartzer's SEO expertise is shared on his blog, www.BillHartzer.com and he is also a regular contributor to industry publication, Search Engine Journal. His thoughts on local can be found in posts on Practical ECommerce magazine, where he serves as the local SEO columnist. Hartzer was also recently named to a list of Top 14 Dallas Marketers by Agency Spotter.

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Facebook IPO Fallout; Xoomfile Version 3 Software Launched

Tue, 24 May 2016 17:23:34 +0000

Facebook IPO fallout from Wall Street following its initial public offering, Jim and Dave analyze the past 7 days, plus they discuss an article titled Linking to Promote Keyword Clusters.

Also, Xoomfile founder and CTO Robert Gagnon tells us about the latest launch of the newest version of their Xoomfile Secure File Transfer software.

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Laura Lippay Joins SEOgadget; Press Release Leads to Google Acquisition Hoax

Tue, 24 May 2016 17:23:13 +0000

The SEO is Dead debate, Importance of Working Yahoo! into your marketing strategy and rollerblading for the Ringling Brothers Circus as Jim and Dave welcome former Director of Technical Marketing at Yahoo! Laura Lippay, now the new CEO of SEOgadget.com.

Jim and Dave also discuss the Press Release announcing a Google Acquisition Hoax, how the Google Penalty Removal Wont Necessarily Improve Rankings and the Anti-Google Holiday Shopping Campaign from Microsoft.

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SES Chicago 2013: SEO Isn't Dead, Its Been Reincarnated; Google Penalty On WWW Revoked But Remains On Non-WWW

Tue, 24 May 2016 17:22:21 +0000

SES Chicago 2013: SEO Isnt Dead, Its Been Reincarnated; Google Penalty On WWW Revoked But Remains On Non-WWW. Also,Matt Cutts responds to a Hacker News thread where someone was upset with spammer SEOs when he noticed a site was scraping the content and images off of his mothers site.Matt responded that the scraper site is not benefiting from the stolen content and is not getting any traffic from Google, from what he can tell.

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Google Gives Ranking Boost To Secure HTTPS/SSL Sites ...and The SEO Community Reacts

Tue, 24 May 2016 17:21:37 +0000

Google Starts Giving A Ranking Boost To Secure HTTPS/SSL Sites and theSEO IndustryReacts. Will Google Ever Update PageRank Again?Right To Be Forgotten To Blame For Removal Of 50 Wikipedia Links From EU Search Results. Also, Dave proclaims his proactiveness following the recent story whereRussian Hackers Amassed Over a Billion Internet Passwords.

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The Art of the SEO Audit

Thu, 19 May 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Discussing The Art of the SEO Audit as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcome Alan Bleiweiss, a Forensic SEO audit consultant with audit client sites consisting of upwards of 50 million pages and tens of millions of visitors a month. Alan explains how forensic SEO audits provide a road-map to those tasks most likely to take your business web site to the next level in organic search results

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Google Rolls out Mobile Friendly Ranking Boost

Thu, 12 May 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Google Rolls out Mobile Friendly ranking boost, Bing Ads Bans Third-Party Technical Support Services Companies, plus Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss:

Google AdWords Bans Payday Loans & Other Risky Loan AdsGoogle Plans to Map the Interior World in 3-DGoogle Dismisses Any Recent Major Algorithm UpdateGoogle reportedly announcing a standalone Android VR headset next weekNew Title & Description Lengths for Google SEO in Search ResultsThe True Value of technical SEOs

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How to Perfom a Manual Backlink Audit

Thu, 05 May 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Siri’s creators say they’ve made something better that will take care of everything for you. Plus, Need to get rid of problematic or unnatural backlinks and not sure where to begin? Dave Davies outlines his process for performing a manual backlink audit.Plus, Dave Davies and Jim Hedger discuss Hacker collects 272m email addresses and passwords, some from Gmail; Sneaky Mobile Redirects & Manual Actions: Google Warns Webmasters Again; A Look at the May 2016 Google Webmaster Report

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Patent on Reasonable Searchers

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Jim and Dave interview patent guru Bill Slawski from SEO By The Sea on a recently granted patent on reasonable searchers. They discuss the significant impact on link calculations this patent introduces as well as what webmasters need to know to maximize the impact on their energies.

Plus, Jim and Dave also discuss :

Getty Images EU Lawsuit against GoogleFTC Anti-Trust investigation against GoogleThe announcement that Webmaster Radio has re-branded as Cranberry Radio

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Google Ad Updates To Affect Local Search

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Google Makes Ad Updates Affecting Local Search as Google makes 2 ad updates that will affect local search marketers. Ads now appear in Local Finder results, plus ads display differently in Google Maps.

Plus, Jim and Dave also discuss :

75% of Site Owners Cleaned Up Hacked Sites After Google NotificationSatisfaction A Future Ranking Signal In Google Search Results?Google Penguin Update! Stahp Already!U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Google Book Scanning CaseGoogle Displaying A Featured Snippet From User Generated Comments

Finally, Email Marketing Platform Adestra Nabs Google Exec Matt McGowan As President as McGowan, head of strategy for Google’s America’s ad agency business, has jumped to UK-based email automation platform Adestra, where he will serve as president, effective immediately.

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Google Ad Updates To Affect Local Search

Thu, 21 Apr 2016 05:14:54 +0000

Rise of the Content Delivery Networks

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 07:00:00 +0000

Rise of the Content Delivery Networks + Content Delivery Networks and SEO, Artificial Intelligence and Facebook – The Bot Revolution or, Are the bots are revolting? Google and Free Product Reviews; The Landscape of Linkbuilding ; Google: Do Not Replace Mobile / Responsive Sites With AMP; USE Rel Canonical / and HREFLANG tags within section, not after is ; Google goes after Clickjackers.

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Google Damages to Oracle Downplayed

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 04:44:05 +0000

Google downplays the importance of Java to Android, to disprove Oracle claims that it’s owed $9.3 billion in damages. A ZDNet reports states Google has filed a rebuttal to Oracle’s claim that it’s due $9.3bn in damages for unlicensed use of Java code in Android. Google says its own damages expert “strongly disagrees” with the financial relief […]

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RankBrain Ranking Signal Importance Roundtable

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 15:51:00 +0000

RankBrain Ranking Signal Importance Roundtable as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcome David Harry and Jennifer Slegg from The SEMPost.

Jennifer reported that Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google also dropped another interesting piece of information RankBrain might not be the third most important ranking signal after all, a figure Google stated when RankBrain was first publicly confirmed.

When Google originally announced RankBrain, a Google Spokesperson confirmed with The SEM Post that Its especially helpful on long-tail queries, such as the 15% never seen before each day. So it could be the case where it could be the 3rd most important ranking factor for some queries, while it is significantly weaker for highly competitive keywords that are seen regularly.

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New WordPress Plugin to Create Facebook Instant Articles

Thu, 10 Mar 2016 18:09:00 +0000

New WordPress Plugin to Create Facebook Instant Articles as Facebook announced that Instant Articles will be available to all publishers on April 12, 2016. And to increase the number of publishers getting on board with Instant Articles, they have announced their own WordPress plugin to make articles Instant Articles friendly.

Instant Articles is similar to AMP in that it creates an extremely mobile friendly version of a page or article that loads up to 10 times faster. Like the AMP plugin, the Instant Articles plugin will make articles that load faster, right within Facebook, rather than the publisher site.

This plugin makes it incredibly easy for publishers to come on board with Instant Articles, if they wish to use it. While there is full documentation, for those without a coding background, the plugin is an easy solution.

Plus Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss aquery posed to fellow SEO Alan Bleiweiss that asks,

"Is there a way to allow Google to index our entire site, and have it show in organic results, EXCEPT for a specific geographic location? The exclusion is not content specific. Id like the option to block a site from showing up in a certain metro area (say Phoenix) or even state (say Arizona)."

Plus,Google Removing PageRank From Google Toolbar andGoogle Transitioning All Official Blogs to Googleblog.com from Blogspot

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Google Sidebar Ads Update: Google Responds to Changes

Thu, 03 Mar 2016 11:22:00 +0000

Google Sidebar Ads Update as recently removed ads from the right-hand side of its desktop search results. Google now gives itsTake On The Recent Changes To The Results Page.

Google Would Like You To Buy Products Using Voice Search.Googles next frontier is conversational shopping, which would allow you to buy products without the click of a button.

Jim Hedger and guest host Thom Craver, ?Director of Analytics of Acronym Media discuss:

Research Proves Positive Effects Of Outgoing Links.
AMP now available in Joomla, Drupal and WordPress.
App indexing and the future of search.
Google's new Hands Free payment app lets you buy stuff with your face.

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Google Trademark Violation Against 9to5Google

Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:14:00 +0000

Google Trademark Violation Against 9to5 Google as after five years of continuous operation, Google has reportedly decided that Google-focused tech site 9to5Google is violating trademark by using its name. In the meantime, Google has barred the site from using its AdSense network through which 9to5Google says it makes "well into six figures a month" and has advised 9to5Google to source ads from third-party operators.

Plus,Manual Actions on Subdomains Can Affect Entire Site;Updates on Googles 4 AdWords Ads andNo Sidebar Ads Change andGoogles New SERP Layout: The Biggest Winners andLosers:What has been the impact of Google's new desktop ad layout thus far?

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Yahoo Content Phasing Out

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 05:45:56 +0000

Yahoo Content Phasing Out as Yahoo outlined out a plan to simplify its business and focus on its four most successful content areas – News, Sports, Finance and Lifestyle. Yahoo will begin phasing out the following Digital Magazines: Yahoo Food, Yahoo Health, Yahoo Parenting, Yahoo Makers, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Autos and Yahoo Real Estate. In other news, Yahoo chief scientist Ron Brachman and V.P. of research Ricardo Baeza-Yates are leaving the company.

Plus, Tell Google Why You Want More Data In Search Console Analytics; FBI Gets Court Order Against Apple – Apple fights back. Tech industry leaders join it (or do they?). Why is this fight relevant and why is it happening right now?

Moores law to the power of holy mackerel. Moore's Law was pretty easy to calcuate. X x 1.5 = Yowzers! D-Wave pushes Moore's Law into the math of quantum mechanics. At a reported 10^8 2016 will be the watershed year for the advancement of AI and robotics. 2016 is the year the common person's technology allows them access to sufficient processing power. Times are about to get far more interesting.

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Artificial Intelligence: Why Digital Marketing Will Never be the Same

Thu, 11 Feb 2016 23:37:41 +0000

Artificial Intelligence: Why Digital Marketing Will Never be the Same as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speak with the author of a blog post on the subject, Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting.

The article describes "see some changes in the Internet, in the Internet of things, and you know everything from connected refrigerators, to, you know, connected temperature systems, connected radios, you know all this kind of stuff. So, that can shift digital marketing as well.".Plus Moz CEO Rand Fishkin explains in the post "theways do you see Google possibly using artificial intelligence in the years to come?"

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John Giannandrea Named New Google Head of Search

Thu, 04 Feb 2016 23:46:07 +0000

John Giannandrea is named Google's new Head of Search, replacingAmit Singhal who is leaving Google. Giannandreawas the Google executive behind their recent forays into machine learning in search, including RankBrain. He has been with Google since 2010. His new official title will be Vice President of Engineering.

Plus,Yahoo is laying off about 1,700 employees and shedding some of its excess baggage in a shake-up likely to determine whether CEO Marissa Mayer can save her own job.

The long-anticipated purge will jettison about 15 percent of Yahoo's workforce along with an assortment of services that Mayer decided aren't worth the time and money that the Internet company has been putting into them.

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Google Penguin To Become Part of Core Algorithm

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 21:19:18 +0000

Google Penguin Weeks Away, Will Be Part of Core Algo; Google PageRank Will Probably Never Update Again. Google: Title Tags Are Not A Critical Ranking Signal, as Google's John Mueller said the title tag on the page is not as critical for ranking than the content on the page. In short, he explained that Google can rank a page with a missing title tag, but missing content makes it much harder for Google to rank.
Google Explains What It Means To Be Part Of The “Core” Algorithm, therefore the algorithm needs to be consistent enough to run by itself without much worry that it won't work right. Bing Boasts Continuous Updates To Their Search Engine Daily.

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The Long March of the Google Penguin Continues

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 16:05:54 +0000

The long march of the Penguins continuesas acore update to Googles algorithm caused quite a bit of excitement among Penguin watchers over the weekend but their exuberance proved to be flightless. Jimthinks it was a version of the rules-rewarding Phantom update., but Gary Illys, however, says it has nothing to do with any animals whatsoever.

Panda not part a real-time ranking event but it is part of the core algorithm. To me this means Panda remains more like a filter through which Google runs and sorts results. Google says it updates itself live-time, a function of dozens, if not hundreds of parts of the core algorithm(s) that sort information. Gary Illys also states Panda is not live-time but part of the core algo. This might sound confusing but if you think about it a second, it gives us a better look at how Google actually works. Photocopy of the webandSorting results sets based on several factors, including regionalization, personalization, and hundreds of on-page signals.

The return of the Google Dance which has come about through the efforts of webmaster trends analyst Gary Illyes and search quality analyst Nathan Johns will happen on March 2, from 7:30pm to 11:00pm PT, at the main Google campus. Transportation from the SMX conference venue in San Jose will be provided and begins at 6:30pm.Attendance is open to the first 500 SMX West All Access pass holders registered (sorry, one day All Access passes arent eligible). If youve already purchased an SMX West All Access pass (or are a speaker), youre automatically registered for check-in at the Google Dance. If you havent, youll automatically be registered until all 500 passes are gone.

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies also speak with Dixon Jones from Majestic SEO about link evaluation, Penguins, the new SEO Dashboard.Dixon is a director at Majestic Tools, a web based specialist search engine used by the worlds leading digital marketers to analyze how web pages on the internet connect between domains. It is the largest database of its kind that can be analyzed publicly in this way, with well over 3 trillion back links crawled and another 3 billion being crawled every day.Majestic is a Delloite Fast 50 company based in Birmingham.He founded Receptional, one of the oldest independent search consultancies in the UK. He is also the creator of several Murder Mystery Games, the kind groups play at corporate, social, or networking events. We wanted to talk to Dixon today about a bunch of things, including the highly anticipated Penguin update, link evaluation as accountancy, the recent SEO Dashboard upgrade to Majestic Tools.

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Drupal CMS Versions Susceptible to Exploits

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 03:39:14 +0000

All Drupal CMS Versions Susceptible to Exploits, sobe aware that there are some major vulnerabilities that have yet to be patched. ASearch Engine Optimizer Sentenced to More than Three Years in Federal Prison for Extorting Money from a Local Merger and Acquisitions Firm. We learnHow Business.com Increased Subscriptions by 65% in 2015.Bing Now Powers AOL Search: What Advertisers Need To Know. FromCES 2016: Microsoft Partners on Smart Car Technologies asMicrosoft announced multiple partnerships with automotive companies aimed at enhancing the connected car experience. Plus, news onPenguin,Twitter and the 10K character rule, and Internet Explorer8, 9, and 10 support going, going, gone.

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Yahoo to Spin Off its Core Business; Momentology 2016 Predictions

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 17:10:58 +0000

Yahoo to Spin Off its Core Business;Momentology 2016 Predictions; Google Search Will Integrate AMP Pages In February 2016, May Get Ranking Boost andBruce ClaysSearch Engine Relationship Chart.Not quite as complex as it once was.

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Three Billion Dollar CyberMonday Beats Forecasts; Slow March of Penguins Continues into 2016

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:17:50 +0000

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CyberMonday beats forecasts with over 3Billion in revenues (or what Google calls lunch), BlackFriday disappoints retailers but was amazing for Amazon. The Slow march of the Penguins Continues into 2016.

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Martin Ford and the Rise of the Robots

Thu, 26 Nov 2015 01:47:44 +0000

Silicon Valley-based author Martin Ford, who recently penned the book Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, talks to Jim Hedger about what machine intelligence and robotics can accomplish, and implores employers, scholars, and policy makers alike to face the implications.

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Succeeding with the Shorty Awards; Adwords Black Friday/Cyber Monday Offers

Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:31:53 +0000

Google Testing Larger Recipe Descriptions in Search Results; SEMPO Launches 2015 Search Marketer Salary Survey To Assess Industry Earnings;
Plus Adwords Black Friday Cyber Monday Offers plus Jim Hedger and Dave Davies speaks withGreg Galant, theCEO, Co-founder of theShorty Awards.

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Social Media Marketing for Small Business Roundtable

Thu, 05 Nov 2015 16:35:35 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies host aSocial Media Marketing for Small Business Roundtable with David McInnis, Brent Csutoras and David Brown. The roundtable extends from a recently published guidethat states "before investing a significant amount of time and capital into a social media campaign, it is important to understand how each of the platforms operate, who they appeal to, and how all of this relates to your company and your marketing objectives."

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Google Updates Webmaster Guidelines Regarding Mobile Redirects

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 16:41:12 +0000

Google Updates Webmaster Guidelines Regarding Redirects, plus the slow march of the Penguins continues with word from Gary Illyes that it will come sometime. Also, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss the launch of Youtube Red, and Liability Hammer Comes Down on Google, But Hits Users.

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New Government in Canada Good or Bad for Tech; New Updates at Google; Back to the Future Day

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 21:59:14 +0000

Today on Webcology Dave Davies and Jim Hedger discuss whether or not the new government in Canada is good or bad for tech, Michael Wolf’s insights in Business Insider today, new updates at Google, Comscore market rankings, and Back to the Future Day!!

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Google Penguin or Penalty? Google Scrubs Ajax Crawl Plans

Fri, 16 Oct 2015 03:36:46 +0000

Google Penguin or Penalty? Google scrubs Ajax crawl plans. Google Trying to Fix Wix Trix; Http to Https – Transfer disavow; The real reason behind HTTPS! Plus, Twitter Inc. lures Google Inc executive Omid Kordestani to become its executive chairman, the latest step in the company's turnaround efforts.

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Google Panda Rolling Out in Increments, Google Authorship and Duplicate Content Issue

Fri, 09 Oct 2015 03:14:24 +0000

Google Panda is reported to be rolling out in increments. Google Authorship not dead? Aggressively attacking hacked spam sites; Study: 29% Of Sites Face Duplicate Content Issues and 80 percent Aren’t Using Schema.org Microdata. Plus, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss what happened this week at Pubcon Las Vegas 2015 and the creation of a new charity made in the name of beloved digital marketer Dana Lookadoo.

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SMX East 2015: Gary Ilyes says HTTPs for SEO is Wrong?

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:30:51 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discusses the goings on at SMX East 2015 where Gary Ilyes from Google spoke about if you go https for SEO purposes, youre doing it wrong. Plus, the days of virtually free data are ending thanks to mobile.

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Local Search Ranking Factors; Google Leads Facebook with App

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 01:49:20 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss local search ranking factors, a new report that says Google has the fourth most popular app, growing faster than Facebook, Google Analytics changes to hourly default view for behavior. Plus, Schema.org will be the new ranking signal on Google SERPs.

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Useful Applications of Facebook Search for Marketers

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 21:51:41 +0000

David Mihm, the ‎Director of Local Search Strategy at Moz, offers Useful Applications of Facebook Search for Marketers following up on his MozCon 2015 presentation where he showcased Graph-powered insights for small-business marketers—with utility well beyond Facebook.

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Working Around Accessing Search Queries in Google Search Console; Google Shot the Serif

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 18:12:29 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss a SERoundtable article where they published a temporary workaround, where users can access the search queries report by after logging into Google Search Console. Plus, Google shot the Serif; Flash Frozen by Google; What has always existed for the Freshman Class of 2019? Also, David Szetela now VP of Search Marketing Operations at Bruce Clay and Did Google Reverse the Panda 4.2 Update?

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5 Awesome Schema.org Rich Snippet Plugins And Mobile Assistant Sprawl With Cortana, Siri, and Google Now

Thu, 27 Aug 2015 22:08:00 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss 5 awesome Schema.org rich snippet plugins for WordPress users, and Facebook M adds to mobile assistant sprawl with Cortana, Siri, and Google Now. They also talk about the fake "women' scandal on Ashley Madison, and the Google Street View car getting hit with tomatoes at a Spanish tomato-throwing festival. Lastly, Jim and Dave tell about a secret search landing a programmer a job at Google, and about the YouTube Gaming launch.

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Mobile Marketing Discussion with Moxie; Matt Cutts Still with Google

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 03:34:03 +0000

Matt Cutts Still with Google, Leave continues through end of the year. New Bug with Indexed URLS in Google Search Results ; Social Signals do not directly impact Google search rankings. Plus Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcomes the team from Mobile Moxie to discuss all thing mobile with Cindy Krum and Emily Grossman

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Technical Sites Not Ranking Problem in Google; Google Ignores Links to 404s

Thu, 13 Aug 2015 19:05:58 +0000

Technical Sites Not Ranking Problem in Google;Google Ignores Links to 404s; Does Wikipedia Really Have a Google Problem; Sesame Street Headed to HBO; Google User Actions not Ranking Factor; Google Marriage Proposal Fail.

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Google Panda 4.2 Continues; New Study Finds Non Mobile Friendly Sites Disappearing From Results.

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 03:08:07 +0000

Google Panda 4.2 Continues; New Study Finds Non Mobile Friendly Sites Disappearing From Results. Facebook Patents Technology to Give Lenders Leverage over Borrowers based on social connections. Plus, Windows 10 Raves, Stephen Harper and Netflix and more.

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Make Re-Marketing a Part of Your Marketing; SEMPost Turns 1-Year Old

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:27:40 +0000

PPCandPerformance Marketer Duane Brown following his presentation at MozCon ondelightful re-marketing. Duane discusses with Jim Hedger and Dave Davies about theimportance of making re-marketing a part ofyour marketing strategy. Plus,SEMPost Turns 1-Year Old and Jennifer Slegg comes on to discusses the milestone.

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Google Panda Slow Load; Content Delivery Networks and SEO

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 16:46:11 +0000

Google Panda Slow Load;Content Delivery Networks and SEO; XML Sitemap counts should be correct again; Google lets users map their steps;Google Maps New Timeline Is a Walk Down Memory Lane;Google wants to index your real-world experiences and make them searchable;Google: HTTPS Acts As A Dealbreaker In A Google Ranking Tie

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Facebook's Rainbow Filters ; Yahoo Search Testing Google Results Instead of Bing.

Thu, 02 Jul 2015 02:33:00 +0000

Facebook's Rainbow Filters and the Algorithmic Echo Chamber; AOLs Exodus From Google Search Partners Signals Major Industry Changes Coming;What Yahoo Testing Google Search Results Over Bing's Really Means;Would You Like To Compare Your Sites In Google Search Console? Let Google Know.

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Matt Cutts Extends Unpaid Leave; How Facebook Can Nail You

Thu, 25 Jun 2015 02:13:28 +0000

Matt Cutts Extends Unpaid Leave;Forget privacy. Thats so over. Facebook can nail you with like, 80% accuracy, even if your face is obscured or covered. ICANN Wants to Ban Domain Privacy for Commercial Sites.
Plus Jim Hedger talks to co-hostDave Davies about a story he explains as Its like when Vroomfondle and Majikthise, representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries, and other Professional Thinking Persons confronted Deep Thought about answering the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.

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Sage Lewis Running for Mayor of Akron, Ohio

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 03:45:15 +0000

Marketing strategist and owner at SageRock Sage Lewis shares his aspirations for running for mayor of Akron, Ohio with Jim Hedger and Dave Davies. Sage explains the move as he filed his petitions while wearing a cowboy hat.

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How Social Media, Content Management and Relationships Tie Into Each Other

Thu, 11 Jun 2015 05:13:36 +0000

Olga Andrienko, Head of Social Media at SEMRush discusses with Jim Hedger and Dave Davies how social media, content management and relationships tie into each other.

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Panda Pending, Constant Penguin, Cloaking via Mobile, Windows 10 Update and More

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 21:24:25 +0000

Panda Pending, Constant Penguin, Cloaking via Mobile, Windows 10 update, Mobilegeddon bigger than anticipated or reported, plus a Matt Cutts retrospective at SMX Advanced. Plus, Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss Does Google Associate Unlinked Brand Mentions with Brand Sites for Ranking? Googles VR camera plans more than just GoPro partnership.

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Google I/O News on Google Android Auto; SEER Interactive Founder Wil Reynolds

Thu, 28 May 2015 15:19:23 +0000

Jim and Dave have an interview with the founder of SEER Interactive, Wil Reynolds. The conversation spans Wil's career, decisions he's made, what it takes to be successful in the industry, and learning from mistakes along the way. Plus, news out of Google I/O onhowGoogle Android Auto will be in nearly all new cars by end of 2015.

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Tweets Coming Back to Google Search; Google Webmaster Tools Renamed Google Search Console

Fri, 22 May 2015 04:14:26 +0000

Google and Twitter bring tweets to Google Search; Are Google and Skrillex making smart phones safer? Search the N-word on Google Maps and it’ll point you to the White House. Google Webmaster Tools Renamed Google Search Console; CSE and Five Eyes revealed to be targeting popular mobile browsers and mobile App Stores. Also, Jim Hedger previews the upcoming ClickItSummit online conference series with conference organizer Itay Paz.

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Googles Phantom Algorithm Update; What Google Defines As A Doorway Page

Fri, 15 May 2015 01:32:23 +0000

Google's 'Phantom' Algorithm Update Hits Websites; Bing To Rank Mobile Friendly Web Pages Better; What Google Defines As A Doorway Page; Right-To-Be-Forgotten: One Year Later; Google has a secret ‘bench’ program.

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Windows 10 and the Mobile Future; Google Page Speed andGoogle Webmaster Tool Changes

Sat, 09 May 2015 04:00:36 +0000

Microsoft Ignite, Windows 10 and the mobile future; Google Page Speed, Google Webmaster Tool changes; C51 passed – warning to American webmasters; : Twitter and Twediting, plus Why SEOs Should Focus on Googles 498 Other Signals, Not Just Panda and Penguin.

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Facebook SOS, Twitter & Google Search & New Advantages In Mobile Search

Thu, 30 Apr 2015 22:26:18 +0000

On today's episode of Webcology hosts Jim Hedger & Dave Davies dive into the changes in the Twitter & Google search system, discuss the changes in Mobile Search, dive into the history of Microsoft Windows systems and the new Microsoft Edge web browser among many other web related topic. Dive in and enjoy!

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Incisive Media parts with ClickZ, SES, and Search Engine Watch; Google Fi, Googl

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 22:34:48 +0000

Incisive Media parts with ClickZ, SES, and Search Engine Watch. Plus, Jim Hedger and Davie Davies discuss Google Fi, Googlapolypse, or, Mobliegeddon, or, Moblapolypse, or yawn.... Facebook’s Friendly – No Friend New Algo, Yahoo vs. MS. Also, Twitter cracks down on trolls and abuse. What could Twitter say that Google would care about? Sum of Us Petition to get Google to take a stand against C51.

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Social Media Policy and Direction

Thu, 16 Apr 2015 22:59:05 +0000

Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcomeMelissa Fach , who was recently announced as the new social community manager for Pubcon. We learn how she will serve as social media manager and director of social media communications, as well as helping set policy and strategic social direction

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Conversion Rate Optimization Day; Google To Keep Pushing Panda and Penguin

Fri, 10 Apr 2015 02:45:57 +0000

#CROday: Conversion Rate Optimization Day. replacing the semi-annual Tim Ash in a speedo day. Google will be pushing Panda and Penguin in the future. Branded sites will not be demoted out of top spot on mobile if they are the right result for the search. Let John Mueller know how to improve webmaster office hours hangouts. Google found violating Childrens’ Advertising Council policies in YouTube for Kids app. Matt Cutts was on This Week in Google on Twit TV yesterday with Leo Laporte and Jeff Jarvis.

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Barry Schwartz to Google? Matt Cutts to Global Runner? Looking Back at April Foo

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 02:42:00 +0000

Looking Back at April Fools 2015 Pranks as Jim Hedger and Dave Davies discuss Google Backwards -- com.google, Google PacMan, Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum displayed Wonder Woman’s Jet, MS Dos for Mobile, CERN confirms existence of The Force, Netfilx Binge Responsibly program, Barry Schwartz Hired as New Head of Search Spam at Google AND...guest Bill Hartzer joins Jim and Dave to discuss the viral hoax that Matt Cutts was hired by Global Runner.

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Facebook F8 Conference; Is Android Plan B for Microsoft Mobile?

Fri, 27 Mar 2015 03:06:39 +0000

News from Facebook’s F8 Conference as Facebook is trying to embed the Internet into itself, or vice versa. Is Android Plan B for Microsoft Mobile?

Weekly meetings with the White House and Google’s persistent presence may have aided in the termination of an FTC antitrust probe. Also, a waste of 80 million dollars? How a startup called Cyanogen could put 'a bullet through Google's head'

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Vanishing Bitcoin; Doorway Pages; Significance of Googles Mobile Friendly Algorithm

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:05:44 +0000

Approximately 12millionworth of Bitcoin have vanished, along with the proprietors of the new Dark Market, Evolution.Plus,Doorway Pages, the significance ofGoogles Mobile Friendly Algorithm, Windows 10, the Fallof Internet Explorer and the Rise of Spartan and more.

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CyberBullying and its Widespread Effect

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 01:57:46 +0000

Discussion on Current Cases of CyberBullying Jim Hedger and Dave Davies welcome Mark Donald, a Litigation Lawyer at MF-Law with focus on commercial, civil and media/defamation matters

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Google Going Mobile and Might Stop Crawling Ajax; Homebrew Computer Club 40th An

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 03:18:29 +0000

Google might stop crawling Ajax; How many graphic designers do I have to beat before they start to optimize their images? Google Going Mobile; Mobile Gets Its Own Index; Google and the Great Goddess Veritas; 40thAnniversary of when Computer hackers in Silicon Valley held the first meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club, whose members would go on to have great influence on the development of the personal computer.

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FCC Approves New Net Neutrality Rules; Nobody Making Money Off YouTube

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 05:21:10 +0000

FCC Approves New Net Neutrality Rules; Revenge Porn Dude Wants His Personal Info Removed From Internet; Plus, Craig Brittain, the man behind the site IsAnybodyDown.com, is whipping out all of the digital laws to protect what's left of his professional image after finding himself in the FTC's crosshairs. Nobody is making money off YouTube; Google issuing SLOW warnings for non-mobile friendly websites; Google WebmasterTools is now warning about Plug-in Updates

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Google Algo insto-Update? Lenovo Crapware Superfish; 5 Questions Your Web Designer Should Ask You

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 21:53:51 +0000

Google algo insto-update?Lenovo Crapware Superfish;5 Questions Your Web Designer Should Ask You (and 5 More You Should Ask Them);Twitter Finally Offers Multiple Logins for Sharing Twitter Accounts Without Sharing Passwords;Net Neutrality Vote coming up next week

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Googles Search Impact Report and Robot Dog; Eavesdropping with Google Chrome

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 22:02:55 +0000

Googles Search Impact Report Goes Live; Expedia grabs Orbitz in competitive bidding; Googles New Robot Dog. Also a New Google Chrome bug allows eavesdropping on conversation, Krisitne Schachinger discusses wth Jim Hedger and Dave Davies how likeSamsung,Google is able to eavesdropas you browse on Chrome.

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New System for Handling SEO Audits; Google To Regain Access To Twitter

Thu, 05 Feb 2015 07:35:17 +0000

Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Pay to Unblock Ads; Google Will Get Access To Twitter to include in Search Results; Call to Upgrade Vulnerability in FancyBox Plugin for WordPress. Also, Jim and Dave to a newly developed to help cope with pushy clients during SEO audits.

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Microsofts Windows 10 Details Announced; WikiLeaks Blasts Google for Quietly Handing Emails to Government

Thu, 29 Jan 2015 23:17:23 +0000

News coming out of theMicrosoft Windows 10 press conference; Google exec chairman Eric Schmidt says Steve Jobs is his hero;WikiLeaks blasts Google for quietly handing emails to government;Google says it fought gag orders in WikiLeaks investigation.

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Suggesting Improvements to Google Search and WebmasterTools

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 03:39:44 +0000

Make suggestions to Google for improvements to Google Search and WebmasterTools; Is Facebook really a path to the KnowledgeGraph? Facebook WORK. Like Google’s Wave but Facebookier.Canadian Economy facing difficulties. CDN Dollar dropping effectively offering US customers a 15 percent discount which could be 20 percent tomorrow. Google Domains now open to all US residents.

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2015: The Year of The Podcast; Moz Responds to Controversial Whiteboard Friday Article

Thu, 08 Jan 2015 23:58:24 +0000

Moz responds toa ControversialWhiteboardFriday article , plus Jim Hedger and guest host Kristine Schachinger discuss theCharlie Hebdo magazine terrorist attack, why everyone is talking about why 2015 is the year of podcasting, SEO misinformation and the appearance of a SEO expert on the Celebrity Apprentice UK.

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Basics About BitCoin; Secret SEO Chats and State of the Industry

Thu, 01 Jan 2015 03:33:22 +0000

Understanding BitCoin with Stephen DeMeulenaere, thefounder of Complementary Currency Resource Center and fellow at Qoin. Plus,Jim talks about the value and importance of SEO chats that are hidden in various places on the web and why many of these places exist in todays search marketing world.

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Dana Lookadoos Road to Recovery; Terry O Reilly and Under the Influence

Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:54:37 +0000

Jim and Dave welcomeDana Lookadoo who recalls her near-fatal bike accident and long recovery process,plusCanadian broadcast producer and personality Terry O'Reilly, best known as host of the CBC Radio One series Under the Influence.

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AliBaba IPO, Google Glasses, Uber, Netflix: The Biggest Search Stories of 2014

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:52:29 +0000

The Biggest Search Stories of 2014 from the Good(Google and Mobile , The SEM Post, AliBaba IPO, The Bad (Google Glasses, Net Neutrality Debate, Facebook Messenger App) and the Ugly (Sellout of Incisive Media and the decline of SEW, Uber vs the World, Bendable iPhones.

Jim and Dave also discuss Google Chrome Wants to Warn Users Before Visiting All Non-HTTPS Sites; Major WordPress Exploit Affecting Hundreds of Thousands of Sites using RevSlider Premium Plugin; Bing predicts 2015 as The Year of the Wearables.

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Most Downloaded Apps on Google Play in 2014; Sir Tim Berners-Lee on Right to be Forgotten

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:36:32 +0000

Most Downloaded Apps on Google Play in 2014; Plus, Jim and guest co-host Kristine Schachinger comments on Sir Tim Berners-Lees comments on The Right to be forgotten, saying this right to be forgotten at the moment, it seems to be dangerous, and that the right to access history is important. Also,A Google bug? Or why would Google bring (old) 301 redirected URLs back to the index?

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Yahoo Sees Big Search Bump From Firefox; Google Penguin Will, like Panda, Keep on Running

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 18:02:13 +0000

Yahoo Sees Big Search Bump From Firefox Deal; Plus, a handy flowchart from Janet Driscoll Miller which always ends at Consult an expert. Thus, its an excellent guide.Yahoo 2014 Top Searched Terms. In a Google Hangout hosted by Google spokesman John Mueller, John suggests Penguin will, like Panda, just keep on running. This means it has completed its evaluations and is now in everflux mode. Also, Google does NOT rank Responsive Design sites better but it likes them a lot more and Google Maps Revamps Quality Guidelines For Local Pages.

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Google Search Results Are Free Speech in the U.S; Google Rolling Out Mobile Friendly Label

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 15:29:58 +0000

Google Search Results Are Free Speech in the U.S; Google rolling outMobile Friendlylabel; Is Google Penalizing Websites With Disallowed Pages? Google Rewrites Quality Rating Guide Refresh Yourself on What SEOs Should Know; Googles DoubleClick Outage Affected 55,000 Websites For Nearly Two Hours; They're back...Google News Testing Tiny Video Thumbnails Alongside Images

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SEO Brings More Visitors to Twitter.

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 17:18:55 +0000

Google Says Over 50 percent Of Navigations Are Now Over HTTPS
Twitter notes SEO brings 10timesmore visitors to their website. Think social media has killed search as a traffic driver? Think again, given that social media giant Twitter shared today that SEO has helped it generate a 10-times increase in logged-out visitors to its web site. Plus,TeaParty group FreedomWorks now Attacking Net Neutrality;Google Says Over 50percentOf Navigations Are Now Over HTTPS ;Google signs 60-year lease on NASA airfield and hangars.

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Digital Marketing in 2015 Predictions; Is Matt Cutts…Leaving Google For Good?

Fri, 07 Nov 2014 00:32:08 +0000

Digital Marketing in 2015 Predictions; Is Matt Cutts...leaving Google for good? Matt makes and announcement about extending his already long leave with Google. Kristine Schachinger of SitesWithoutWalls guest hosts.

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Google Inbox: Pros And Cons; Big 3rd Quarter For Baidu

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 03:31:03 +0000

Montreal woman wins cash from Google for Street View cleavage; Google Inbox: Ten Pros And Cons; Chinese Search Giant Baidu Reports 2.2 Billion dollars In Revenue For 3Q 2014; Google wants to detect cancer earlier with a tiny pill in blood.

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Coreferences In Followup Queries and the Google Penguin 3.0 Update With Bill Slawski and Chuck Price

Thu, 23 Oct 2014 23:27:08 +0000

Coreferences In Followup Queriesand the Google Penguin 3.0Update as Jim and Dave speak withSEOByTheSea Author Bill Slawski and Chuck Price, the founder and CEO of Measurable SEO.

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Amazon Is Main Competitor to Google? Google Admits Spam Is A Hard Problem For User Generated Content Sites

Thu, 16 Oct 2014 01:53:01 +0000

Google Same-Day Delivery Expands; Schmidt Says Amazon Is Main Competitor; Google Admits Spam Is A Hard Problem For User Generated Content Sites; Is It Too Late To Disavow Links Once They Show In Google Webmaster Tools; Google Now Testing Mobile-Friendly Text Notices In Search Results; New Eye-Tracking Study from Gord Hotchkiss.

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Canadian Shoppers Consult Smartphones Before Buying; Facebook Hyper-Local Ads

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 01:05:41 +0000

Canadian shoppers wont make purchases in-store before pulling out their phone, suggests report. Facebook Launches Hyper-Local Ads. Google+ isn’t dying anytime soon, says Googles new head of social media David Besbris.
TopSEOs removed from Google index.

Plus, we get a look into the Google Cloud Platform with Jeff James from Petri, and a PubCon 2014 with David McKenzie-Kong from Beanstalk SEO.

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SEMPO Organizes Search Marketing Code of Ethics Meeting

Fri, 03 Oct 2014 03:57:59 +0000

SEMPO and Other Leading Search Marketing Groups Unite in Call for Delegates to Frame Search Marketing Code of Ethics as an Initial Organizational Meeting is set to be held at Pubcon 2014 in Las Vegas. SEMPO President Emeritus and SEO Rockstars host Chris Boggs fills us in.

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Matt Cutts Returns ,Taunts Black Hat SEOs ; Google Severely Hits Private Blog Networks

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 23:38:05 +0000

Google Senior Engineer Matt Cutts Returns ,Taunts Black Hat SEOs; Google Severely Hits Private Blog Networks; Also, Yahoo was, for a time this week, completely worthless, at least on paper. Jim and Dave explain how that went down.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook Accuses Google Of Gross Privacy Violations; Google News Publi

Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:40:57 +0000

Tim Cook Accuses Google Of Gross Privacy Violations. Google News Publishers Reporting HTTPS Migration Going Smoothly; Webmasters Reporting Google Sitelinks Searchbox Now Taking Queries To Their Sites; Apple Tries to Distance Itself From Facebook and Google on Privacy; Bing: 130 Million URLs Removed For URL Keyword Stuffing.

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Facebook Testing Self-Destructing Status Updates? More Penguin and Google Algori

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:49:14 +0000

More Penguin and Google Algorithm Update Info; Google Hangouts now offers free voice calls to numbers in the US and Canada; The Economic Viability of Live Digital Conferences; Facebook Testing Self-Destructing Status Updates After Specified Time; Google Knowledge Graph Now With In The News Box.

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Facebook Testing Self-Destructing Status Updates? More Penguin and Google Algorithm Update Info

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:49:14 +0000

More Penguin and Google Algorithm Update Info;Google Hangouts now offers free voice calls to numbers in the US and Canada; The Economic Viability of Live Digital Conferences; Facebook Testing Self-Destructing Status Updates After Specified Time; Google Knowledge Graph Now With In The News Box.

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SEOs! - Here Come the Holidays! Could DuckDuckGo Overtake Bing?

Thu, 04 Sep 2014 22:28:10 +0000

Hey SEOs! - Here Come the Holidays! Google Hangout Box Now Appears In Search Results; Google will refund at least 19 million dollars to parents billed for purchases their children made; Disavow File Now Enough For Inorganic Links; Could DuckDuckGo Overtake Bing?

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Why You Should Care About PageRank; Amazon Plans Their Own Online Advertising

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 12:21:05 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Why You Should Care About PageRank; Eric Schmidt says unbreakable encryption is coming;Amazon is planning to launch their own online advertising program, which includes replacing all of Googles ads; Google Wins 1.3 Million Dollars From a Patent Troll; Google Spam Patent Reverse Engineers Local Listings.

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Google AdWords Takes Out Exact and Phrase Match; Google DMCA Notices Reach Record High

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 22:44:24 +0000

Google is killing off exact and phrase match in AdWords, Google Webmaster Tools Now More Important for Link Discovery and Cleanup. Google DMCA Notices Reach Record High. Plus, Jim talks to Rustybricks newest employee, an old crotchety Englishman named Lenny.

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Google Penalties for Content Spam Guest Blogging and Manual Spam Action of Webmaster Tools

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 13:31:52 +0000

Google is prepping to issue penalties for content spam guest blogging (vs link spam)?Google Penalties Reappearing In Manual Spam Action of Webmaster Tools. Why 3 Google executivess have left for Chinese companies in a year? Google takes a page from the Pentagons radical ideas factory DARPA.

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Search Engine Watch Editor Departs; Google Domains Invites Available

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 01:34:54 +0000

Jim, Dave and guest host Jennifer Slegg speak with Danny Goodwin who announced he is Leaving as Editor at Search Engine Watch, plus Google Domains Invites Available Through Google Employees andGoogle Updates Local Search Algorithm (called Pigeon) With Stronger Ties To Web Search Signals .

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Google Rewrites Quality Rating Guide; Is Web Analytics Dying? Huge Facebook Q2 Earnings

Thu, 24 Jul 2014 07:00:00 +0000

Jim welcomes gust host Jennifer Slegg, founder of the SEM Post, to discuss headlines including: Google Rewrites Quality Rating Guide – What SEOs Need to Know; Engineers Workon Google Penguin Algo Update; Is Web Analytics Dying? Facebook second quarter earnings: 788 million dollars up from 331 million last year. Facebook stock more than doubles year to year.

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Microsoft To Cut 18,000 Jobs; Real SEOs Solve Problems; A New Google Sandbox

Thu, 17 Jul 2014 23:29:09 +0000

Microsoft to cut 18,000 jobs, reported to affect marketing, engineering and other areas where there is overlap from Nokia merger; Testing robots.txt files made easier; State of the Industry Real SEOs Solve Problems; A New Google Sandbox.

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10 Lies You Should Never Believe From SEO Gurus; Gated Content; Flaws in EU Rig

Thu, 10 Jul 2014 19:45:21 +0000

Jim welcomes the Director of Digital Strategy at 435 Digital and Tribune Company Carolyn Shelby. They discuss Gated Content; Matt Cutts Takes Leave of Absence; 10 Lies You Should Never Believe From SEO Gurus; Europe starting to see the flaws in the right to be forgotten ruling and Google executives death on Santa Cruz yacht turns lurid with prostitute arrest.

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Is Google Respecting the Right to be Forgotten; Facebook Found Manipulating Users Emotions

Thu, 03 Jul 2014 21:30:02 +0000

Is Google Respecting the Right to be forgottenasGoogle has informed journalists at the Guardian that pieces they wrote have been removed in compliance with the new EU regulations regarding the Right to be forgotten. Facebook Found Manipulating Users Emotions as a Social Experiment? PlusCommunity gets its sixth season, courtesy of Yahoo,Google social network Orkut is closing on September 30th.andJason Calacanis Wants Revenge Against Google andMatt Cutts For Destroying Mahalo.

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How Universal Analytics Is Different And What You Should Be Doing Now

Thu, 26 Jun 2014 23:34:27 +0000

Alan K'necht, partner atDigital Always Media, discusses How Universal Analytics Is Different And What You Should Be Doing Now. Plus,Google to Remove Author Images from Search Results;Bings Duane Forrester Says Adding Schema Markup Is Important For Search EnginesandGoogle announces Android L with Material Design at Google I/O.

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British Columbia Supreme Court Orders Removal of Global Search Listing; Supreme Court of Canada Upholds Internet Users' Privacy

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 00:45:03 +0000

BC Supreme court orders removal of global search listing;Supreme Court of Canada Upholds Internet Users' Privacy;The Amazon Fire Phone;Google: Avoid Using The noscript For Content You Want Google To Trust
;302 Redirected Links Can Cause Google Manual Actions;YouTube Is About To Delete Independent Artists From Its Site

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DSKNECTD: How Technology Changes The Way We Interact; World Cup Fan Roundtable

Thu, 12 Jun 2014 06:13:43 +0000

Writer/director Dominic H. White of the newly released motion picture DSKNECTD, discusses the various ways technology may be profoundly changing the way we interact with others, and also discuss the pros and cons.

Also, Jim and Dave host a World Cup Fan Roundtable with Thom Craver (Internet Marketing Ninjas), Simon Heseltine (AOL) and Eric Lander ( D50 Media).

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Google Panda Update Penalities; SpyFu Web Scraping Valuable Data

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 07:00:00 +0000

28 Percent of Webmasters Say Googles Panda Update Penalized Them; How Google Ranks Pages That Don’t Get Many Links. Plus Mike Roberts, the founder of from SpyFu, discusses his company web scraping software gives cost per click and search volume statistics on keywords and uses that data to approximate what websites are spending on advertising.

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Understanding BitCoin; Google Driverless Cars

Thu, 29 May 2014 23:34:30 +0000

Jim helps us to Understanding BitCoin with Stephen DeMeulenaere, thefounder of Complementary Currency Resource Center and fellow atQoin. Also, we learn howGoogle to test self-driving cars

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Major Hack: Bad Week to be eBay; Google Panda Bears Picnic

Thu, 22 May 2014 01:05:36 +0000

Bad week to be EBay eh?AMajor hack compromised millions of profiles. The full ebay user database dumped with 145, 312 663 unique records? GooglePanda Bears Picnic as many were Hit hard by Google Panda 4.0 as Jim and Dave discuss thePanda Winners and Losers. Also, Colleen Hardwick from PlaceSpeaks wows our hosts talking about data.
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Google Penguin and Panda Updates; SMX Toronto 2012 Recap
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Hacksymetric Warfare 2013
A Web Hosts New Years Nightmare
The Top 5 Things You Should Know About Google Adwords
Future ClickZ Live Speakers: Pay to Speak Rumor? Click Z Live Toronto 2014

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Future ClickZ Live Speakers: Pay to Speak Rumor? Click Z Live Toronto 2014

Thu, 15 May 2014 23:01:30 +0000

Future ClickZ Live Speakers: Pay to Speak? We hear the buzz regarding this growing rumor. Plus, we get an account of the Keynote ClickZ Live Toronto whereTwitter Canada MD Kirstine Stewart where theFormer EVP of CBC discussesl How Twitter Fits into the Vast Digital Marketing Ecosystem.
Related articles across the web

Google Penguin and Panda Updates; SMX Toronto 2012 Recap
SES Conference Renamed ClickZ Live; Google Feature Requests For Webmaster Tools
SEO Then and Now

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Danny Sullivan on Return of SES; Google Will Not Devalue Links Soon Says Matt Cutts

Thu, 08 May 2014 00:26:21 +0000

Danny Sullivan on Return of SES;Google Will Not Devalue Links Soon Says Matt Cutts. Also,Google, Netflix, And Others Sign Letter Opposing The FCC's Internet Fast Laneas the FCCs new net neutrality proposal will pass is causing venture capital firms to stop funding startups with services that rely on fast Internet connections for videos, music or other services. The fear is that such companies may need to pay a ransom to large ISPs in the future, and those fees could dramatically impact their profitability.

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Expanding Into Social Media Journalism

Thu, 01 May 2014 21:42:06 +0000

Marty Weintraub explains how aimClear isExpanding Into Social Media Journalism bybuilding a five-thousand square foot multimedia production studio to do social media journalism at his office in Duluth, Minnesota.
Related articles across the web

Expanding Internet Marketing to Asian Markets
Google +1 Button Goes Red and Gives Thanks; How To Blog Posts
Conversion Optimization and Sketchy SEO
Gmail Hacked in China; Standardized Search Results
Facebook Graph Search Impacting Business Pages
Facebook Redesigns Continue With Timeline

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Dana Lookadoo and Her Road to Recovery; Social Discovery App Ban.jo; Google Terminology Changes

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 11:22:35 +0000

Dana Lookadoo recalls her near-fatal bike accident and long recovery process and Laura Lippay joins is to discuss some artisitic submissions of paintings (a head-shot Panda and a bloody teared Penguin)for aneBay Auction to help Dana financially with her recovery efforts.

Jim and Dave also welcomeDamienPatton from Ban.jo, asocial discovery app that providesprovides real time content discovery by location across multiple social networks. Also, Thom Craver from Internet Marketing Ninjas drops in to discuss some Google Terminology Changes .

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Google Starts Blocking Access to Paid Search Keyword Data; Matt Cutts Controversial Interview Post

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 16:14:25 +0000

Googles Matt Cutts Knows 90 Percent Of Your SEO Questions;Google Starts Blocking Access to Paid Search Keyword Data;Google Takes Down 7 Japanese Link Networks. Also, Jim introduces us to theRunnymede Robotics team seeking funding to get to the FRC World Championships in St. Louis.
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Google Robot Obsession; Matt Cutts Defines Stitching Content; Google Manual Penalty Sandbox
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Majestic Search Engine Launches Live Rank Factors; Google Penalties Get More Severe for Repeat Offenders
Matt Cutts and Google: New Warning on Advertorials and Paid Content; Google Warns - Disclose Paid Content or Else
Matt Cutts: Google's Search Results Will Always Be In Flux
SEOs Calling Out Google's Matt Cutts As A Hypocrite?
Google's Matt Cutts on SEO: A Retrospective (2000-2005)

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ClickZ Live New York 2014 Highlights; Google Launches April Fools Pokemon Hunt

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 01:07:04 +0000

ClickZ Live New York 2014 Highlights: Chair Mike Grehan Resigns;Google launches April Fools Pokemon hunt on Google Maps;Google: PageRank Not Popularity Topical PageRank Helps and Authority On Subjects Coming,
Related articles across the web

April Fools: Pokemon hunting comes to Google
Google Adwords Third Party Ad Serving
Life After Google Encrypts All Organic Search Keywords; Mega SERPS; Google: Retiring PageRank?
Page Speed Ranking Factor Not More Important On Mobile Search; Yahoo Defeats Google: Gets More Unique Visitors
Comparing Google Penguin and Panda: Drops in Rankings

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Social Media Analytics With Alan Knecht and Adam Proehl

Thu, 27 Mar 2014 18:32:53 +0000

Recapping their Pubcon New Orleans 2014 presentation onSocial Media Analytics , Alan Knecht from Digital Always Media and Adam Proehl fromNordicClick. They discuss the importance of context when reporting your metrics, the dangers of allowing a young intern to manage your Social Media and how to get people to care about your social media efforts.

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MyBlogGuest Publishers Receiving Google Penalties

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 13:18:33 +0000

MyBlogGuest Publishers Receiving Google Penalties, and one of those publishers,Ann Smarty from MyBlogGuest andInternet Marketing Ninjas Responds to Googles Action Against MyBlogGuest.MyBlogGuest is a well-known service that helps pair writers and blogs for guest blogging.
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Return of the Keyword? New Google Search Results Design Goes Live

Thu, 13 Mar 2014 15:52:42 +0000

Return of the Keyword?Google Makes It Official: New Search Results Design Goes Live For All;Google Now Targeting Italian and Spanish Link Spammers;Google To Publishers Concerned Over The Knowledge Graph; Searchers Still Need Your Content

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SMX Advanced 2009 Recap
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Google Launches Media Tools For Reporters and Journalists, Seeks Searcher Satisfaction
Google Privacy FTC Anti-Trust Ruling Followup
Google Instant: One Week Later

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Google Indexing Bug Causes Web To Read Lorem Ipsum; Tweet Showing How Google Itself Is Scraper Site Goes Viral

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 03:03:44 +0000

Google Indexing Bug Causes The Web To Read Lorem Ipsum;Tweet Showing How Google Itself Is A Scraper Site Goes Massively Viral;As Google Upgrades Google Maps Business Listings, Conflicts Happen Including Duplicate Listing Issues
Related articles across the web

Odd Google Indexing Bug Causes The Web To Read "Lorem Ipsum"

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Apple Retires Snow Leopard; Google Project Ara Goes Live

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 18:34:11 +0000

Apple is having a bad week:,Retires Snow Leopard, 1 in 5 macs at risk;Another bug in iPhone means more problems for users;Google teasing 34 cities with Fiber

Also, Project Ara is announced, site goes live. We learn about theAmbitious 2 year plan to create modular smartphone, while explaining why Google bought and soldMotorola but kept the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group.

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Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly

Fri, 21 Feb 2014 01:59:57 +0000

Jim and Dave welcome Canadianbroadcast producer and personalityTerry O'Reilly, best known as host of theCBC Radio OneseriesO'Reilly on Advertising,The Age of Persuasion, and most recentlyUnder the Influence.

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Are Publishers Overselling Social Traffic at the Expense of Search?

Thu, 13 Feb 2014 18:08:22 +0000

Are Publishers Overselling Social Traffic at the Expense of Search?Comcast to Acquire Time Warner Cable for 45.2 Billion Dollars;Faceted navigation best (and 5 of the worst) practices;Infinite scroll search-friendly recommendations
Related articles across the web

Comcast set to acquire Time Warner Cable in $45.2-billion friendly deal

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Yahoo Wants Back in the Search Game; Google Starts Penalizing Sites for Rich Snippet Spam

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 01:54:07 +0000

Yahoo Wants Back in the Search Game;Google Starts Penalizing Sites for Rich Snippet Spam;Bing to Showcase Winter Olympics Data in Search Results;Google Starts Penalizing Sites for Rich Snippet Spam

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Google sells Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for 2.9 Billion Dollars ; Moz State of the Industry Survey

Thu, 30 Jan 2014 18:42:39 +0000

Google sells Motorola Mobility to Lenovo for 2.9billion;Maximum Trolling by the Nobel Committee;Moz State of the Industry Survey; (Sugar)Rae Hoffman weighs in on Google Propaganda;Patent Troll wins big against Google;Angry Birds and the NSA
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Why Google's Motorola Mobility deal is better than you think

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Guest Blogging is Dead ? Hackers, Eric Snowdon and All Things Privacy

Fri, 24 Jan 2014 03:34:16 +0000

Eric Snowdon speaks out;Guest Blogging is Dead dead dead, says Matt Cutts;Google Chrome bug lets hackers eavesdrop on you:;Google Lets Slip That It's Exploring Possible Bitcoin Integration Plans.Plus, Jim and Dave talk online privacy with Amone marketing and web coordinator Michelle Stone
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Google Chrome bug lets hackers eavesdrop on you
Eavesdropping? Google Chrome Can Hear Your Real-Life Conversations!
Time for Guest Blogging With a Purpose
Can Google's Chrome Browser Be Used To Eavesdrop?

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Google, Moz and Hubspot: Most Recognized Marketing Tech Brands; Survey: More Teens Leaving Facebook

Thu, 16 Jan 2014 17:00:55 +0000

Google, Moz and Hubspot Are The Most Recognized Marketing Tech Brands In Marketing Land Survey; iStrategy Labs reports3 Million Teens Leave Facebook In 3 Years in their 2014 Facebook Demographic Report

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A Web Hosts New Years Nightmare

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 23:17:07 +0000

A Web Hosts New Years Nightmare as we break down the anatomy of a huge hack he uncovered, and how he got assistance from his guest Clayton Gardner from Canhost Inc.

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Top Tech, Social, Search, Tech Biz and Computer Culture Stories of 2013: Not-Provided, Google Hummingbird, Edward Snowden

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:03:51 +0000

Top Tech, Social, Search, Tech Biz and Computer Culture Stories of 2013 includingEdward Snowden, Not-Provided, GoogleHummingbird, Integration with search,Changing consumer habits, Facebook losing teens,Twitter IPO,Gaming Micropayments and more

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Majestic Search Engine Launches Live Rank Factors; Google Penalties Get More Sev

Thu, 12 Dec 2013 23:04:36 +0000

Majestic Search Engine Launches Live Rank Factors as Dixon Jones joins Jim and guest host Carolyn Shelby of 435 Digital to discuss. Also, Matt Cutts: Google Penalties Get More Severe for Repeat Offenders, Acronym Launches 'Keyword Provided' Algorithm to Recover '(Not Provided)' Keywords and Google Penalty Notifications Sent To Anglo Rank Link Buyers.
Related articles across the web

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Google Robot Obsession; Matt Cutts Defines Stitching Content; Google Manual Penalty Sandbox

Thu, 05 Dec 2013 17:43:55 +0000

A robot obsession is proof that Google wants to be more than just a search and services company.Matt Cutts Defines Stitching Content; Search Engine Roundtable Turns 10; Google Manual Penalty Sandbox.

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Google Authorship; NSA Spied On Porn Habits Of Radicalizers; Google Wants to Write Your Social Media Message

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:14:20 +0000

Google Authorship - Should I be claiming copy I write on a client's site under my authorship? Its high quality copy, I just want to be clear who I should give the authorization of it to. This question and more are answered on this special Thanksgiving Marketers roundtable discussion featuring Bria Jordan of Digital Always Media, Jeff Ferguson from Fang Digital and Ryan Jones from Sapient Nitro. Also,Google Wants to Write Your Social Media Messages For You,Bing Integrates TripAdvisor Tools, Content Into Search Results,NSA Spied On Porn Habits Of 'Radicalizers,' Planned To Use Details To Embarrass Them

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SES Conference Renamed ClickZ Live; Google Feature Requests For Webmaster Tools

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 22:32:11 +0000

SES Conference Renamed ClickZ Live; Google Feature Requests For Webmaster Tools; More new suggestions for Googles Webmaster Tools. Plus, Jim discusses Social Media for Civic Good when Canadian Tire chose to boycott to pressure the TV show Ford Nation (hosted by Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford) to be cancelled.

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Breaking Bad: Netflixs Most Popular Show In The US; Matt Cutts Talks Blog Commen

Fri, 15 Nov 2013 02:40:10 +0000

Discussing the impact of digital media content distribution as Jim and Dave how ‘Breaking Bad’ Is Netflix’s Most Popular Show In The U.S plus Matt Cutts Talks Blog Comments And Link Spam and Google Can Now Use Your Name And Face Wherever It Wants.

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SES Chicago 2013: SEO Isn’t Dead, Its Been Reincarnated; Google Penalty On WWW R

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 00:18:38 +0000

SES Chicago 2013: SEO Isnt Dead, Its Been Reincarnated; Google Penalty On WWW Revoked But Remains On Non-WWW. Also, Matt Cutts responds to a Hacker News thread where someone was upset with spammer SEOs when he noticed a site was scraping the content and images off of his mothers site. Matt responded that the scraper site is not benefiting from the stolen content and is not getting any traffic from Google, from what he can tell.

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Google Outrage over NSA Intrusion; Good Luck Jill Whalen; Toronto Mayor Rob Ford

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 01:28:10 +0000

Good Luck Jill Whalen; Google Outrage over NSA Intrusion as both Google and Yahoo lash out over reports of NSA interception ; FAA Will Allow Mobile Devices to be Used Throughout Flights; NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to work for one of Russia's most popular websites. Also, Toronto police have copy of alleged Rob Ford crack video.

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PubCon2013: Jason Calacanis & Matt Cutts

Thu, 24 Oct 2013 20:52:38 +0000

PubCon2013 What was said between Jason Calacanis and Matt Cutts? Google Is Apparently Reducing Authorship In Results; Google Link Penalty on WWW vs Non WWW Goodbye, Google PageRank Data: Maybe Just for Now, But More Likely Forever; First Evidence Of Google Smartphone Ranking Penalty

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Google Launches Media Tools For Reporters and Journalists, Seeks Searcher Satisf

Thu, 17 Oct 2013 23:01:08 +0000

Google Launches Media Tools For Reporters and Journalists; Google Seeks Searcher Satisfaction: How Marketers Can Keep Up; Guest Blogging Best Done In Moderation; Google Seeks To Appeal Wiretap Ruling; AOL dethrones Google at top of video-ad rankings.

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Life After Google Encrypts All Organic Search Keywords; Mega SERPS; Google: Retiring PageRank?

Thu, 10 Oct 2013 15:34:03 +0000

Alan Knecht of Digital Always Media discusses Life After Google Encrypts All Organic Search Keywords; Mega SERPS: A Visual Guide to Google; Is Google Getting Ready to Retire PageRank? User Redirection Based On Location Is Not Spam.

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Breaking Down Googles New Hummingbird Algorithm Change

Thu, 03 Oct 2013 16:29:52 +0000

Breaking Down Googles New Hummingbird Algorithm Change as Jim and Dave welcome David Harry ofv the SEO Training Dojo to discuss a recent article entitled A Search Geeks Thoughts on Google Hummingbird.

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Google Locks up Keyword Data; Google Plus Hashtags into Google Searches; Penalizing For Invalid HTML

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 17:07:13 +0000

Does Google Penalize For Invalid HTML? Matt Cutts Says No ; Google #search adds hashtag support, but only for G+. Michelle Stinson-Ross from digital Always Media is back to explain. Bing gets a redesign and a logo change. eBay Confirms Acquisition of Global Payments Innovator Braintree for 800 million dollars. Search Engine Watch reporter Thom Craver discusses how Google has locked up Keyword Data and moved Entirely to Secure Search.

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Google Plan To Keep People Alive Longer; Takeaways from SES San Francisco 2013

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 18:14:22 +0000

Calico: Googles Plan To Keep People Alive Longer, So They Can Click On More Ads; What Happens When You Disavow 35,000 Links In Google; New Study Finds Google+ Shares Don't Cause Higher Search Rankings. Also, Jim and Dave welcome Michelle Stinson-Ross from Digital Always Media to give us takeaways from SES San Francisco 2013.

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Verizon: Should They Block Websites; Thank You Norman Borlaug; Google Webmaster Tools: Much Better Link Data

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 15:44:44 +0000

Dave concurs a statement that Verizon Communications should be able to block its broadband customers from going to websites that refuse to pay the provider to deliver their traffic. Matt Cutts announces news for SEOs and publishers! Google Webmaster Tools gives much better link data now.

Also, thanks given to Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, responsible for genetic science in agricultural development, spawning what is known today as the green revolution. Finally, New Facebook Privacy Issue Sparks Official FTC Inquiry

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Correlation, Causation and Coincidence in SEO; Mozilla Moves to Block Cookies

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 17:02:52 +0000

Correlation, Causation and Coincidence in SEO as Dave elaborates on a recent Search Engine Watch article which discusses how some SEOs lack of understanding of the difference between correlation and causation. Also, Mozilla Moves to Block Cookies by moving ahead with a new Do Not Track browser that will block cookies (by default setting) from users browsers.

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Hacksymetric Warfare 2013

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 17:04:08 +0000

Talking Hacksymetric Warfare 2013 as Webcology looks at how the late August DNS hack by the Syrian Electronic Army was executed against the New York Times, Twitter and Huffington Post. Guests Kristine Schachinger and Josh Dennis are Def Con alumni. They take us through the attack from the initial phishing expedition to what information the hackers might have accessed with control of the DNS. We also cover methods of avoiding hacks and how to secure your Internet properties against attacks.

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Page Speed Ranking Factor Not More Important On Mobile Search; Yahoo Defeats Google: Gets More Unique Visitors

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 17:24:53 +0000

Page Speed Ranking Factor Not More Important On Mobile Search; Yahoo Defeats Google: Gets More Unique Visitors in July; Google FAQ On Authorship rel author.

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Bings Official List of SEO Dos and Don'ts; Digital Always Media Makes a New Strategic Alliance

Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:50:53 +0000

Jim and Dave run through 27 of Bings Official List of SEO Dos and Donts; Digital Always Media Makes a New Strategic Alliance as Jim announces a new business venture with Firestarter Social Media. Jim also discusses his dealings with Facebook pages and boost post.

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Bad Links To Your Site? Dont Fret It, Disavow It! Def-con Hacking Conference; Cre8asite Forums Turns 15

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 16:49:39 +0000

Matt Cutts tells us if you Got Bad Links To Your Site? Dont Fret It, Disavow It! Def-con Hacking Conference Recap as SiteWithoutWalls founder Kristine Schachinger gives her take following the conference. Firestarter Social Media CEO Michelle Stinson Ross tells us about the Facebook News Feed Algo change, and Kim Krause Berg, Jim Boykin and Chris Boggs from Internet Marketing Ninjas to talk about the 15th anniversary of Cre8asite Forums.

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What is Pure Spam? 10 Examples From Google; Spectacular Online Marketers Who Exemplify Our Industry

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 17:49:04 +0000

What is Pure Spam? 10 Examples From Google; Google Tests Design Change To Sitelinks In Search Results; Starbucks To Partner With Google On Upgraded Wi-Fi; Googles Matt Cutts Gives Content Curation The Thumbs Up Also, Jim is named as one of The aimClear Wants To Clone You Awards! 43 Spectacular Online Marketers Who Exemplify Our Industry.

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Google? Link Schemes; Matt Cutts on Expandable Hidden Text; ?BlackBerry? lays off 250

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 17:05:31 +0000

Recent changes to Googles Link Schemes page; Matt Cutts on Expandable Hidden Text ; ?BlackBerry? lays off 250;How Anthony Weiner might still be the leading candidate, even if he cannot stop sexting. Also, a Google Video Game Console Could Soon Hit Store Shelves

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2013: The Year In Google SEO; Google Panda Refresh; Yahoo Second Quarter Search Revenues Climb

Thu, 18 Jul 2013 17:15:28 +0000

2013: The Year In Google SEO; Google Panda Refresh Happening Now? Matt Cutts Warns About Linking Too Many Sites Together; Did Google Penalize TechCrunch? Yahoo Second Quarter Search Revenues Climb 5 percent to 403 Million Dollars in Q2 2013; Google Confirms Panda Update Is Rolling Out: This One Is More Finely Targeted.

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Ecom Hell: How to Make Money in Ecommerce Without Getting Burned; Dealing with Google Penguin Algorithm Problems

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 15:44:07 +0000

Ecom Hell: How to Make Money in Ecommerce without getting Burned as Jim and Dave speak with SEO and author Shirley Tan. Plus, David Harry aka The Gypsy from SEO Dojo and Search News Central speaks on Dealing with Google Penguin algorithm problems.

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Google Rolls out Remarketing Lists for Search Ads; Simplifies Process to Link AdWords and Analytics

Thu, 27 Jun 2013 13:41:15 +0000

Google Rolls out Remarketing Lists for Search Ads; Simplifies Process to Link AdWords and Analytics; Jim and Dave discuss a Search Engine Watch article on why if you've had problems integrating your Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts together, you are in luck. MozCast Shows Huge Google Changes But Was There An Update?

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Takeaways from Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced 2013: Page Speed, Bounce Rate, Authorship, Panda Updates and more

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:55:25 +0000

Takeaways from Matt Cutts at SMX Advanced 2013: Page Speed, Bounce Rate, Authorship, Panda Updates and more, Does page speed affect rankings? Bounce Rate; Is Short Term Social vs. Long Term Social overrated for SEO? Dave welcomes David Harry of SEO Training Dojo and Terry Van Horne of SEO Pros to break down what we learned this week.

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U.S. Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls; Is Google America's Third Political Party?

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:36:57 +0000

U.S. Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls; Is Google America's third political party. Jim and Dave also preview SES Toronto 2013 and how Google Analytics is becoming A Robust Testing Platform With Content Experiments API, and how Google has No Plans for Glass Facial Recognition Apps.

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Matt Cutts and Google: New Warning on Advertorials and Paid Content; Google Warns Disclose Paid Content or Else

Thu, 30 May 2013 15:10:56 +0000

Matt Cutts and Google: New Warning on Advertorials and Paid Content; Google Warns Disclose Paid Content or Else; Disavowing links? use a machete rather than a scalpel. Delete from entire domains rather than cherry picking links; Facebook cracking down on sexual violence against women? What took them so long? Also, who said If you are a brand and youre not on Google+, youre an idiot.

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Google releases Penguin 2.0; Teens Leaving Facebook? Crackstarter moving to Kickstarter

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:04:36 +0000

Google releases Penguin 2.0; Teens Leaving Facebook? Crackstarter moving to Kickstarter. We also discuss the art of crowdfunding and crowdsourcing with the founder of Boca Raton, Florida based co-working facility Caffeine Spaces (and the co-founder of the South Florida-based New Tech Community) Mark Laymon and 17-year-old Jared Kleinert , Founder/CEO of Synergist, a crowdsourcing platform for social entrepreneurs.

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Google I/O Developer Conference Fallout; Inside Interactivity Digital 2013

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:41:13 +0000

Jim is joined by David Harry aka THeGypsy from Verve Developments to discuss the fallout that came from the 6th annual Google I/O Developer Conference, which featured changes to Google+ Chrome and search via spoken answers. We also get a report from Michelle Stinson-Ross from Firestarter Social Media on location from Interactivity Digital 2013, including the anticipated session from post-Blueglass executives Loren Baker and Greg Boser.

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5 Ways You May Be Stuck In the Good Ol' Days of SEO

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:52:46 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss 5 Ways You May Be Stuck In the Good Ol' Days of SEO based off a recent Search Engine Watch article by Kristine Schachinger that discusses all the algorithm changes of years past and how SEOs have looked at past techniques to manipulate the latest algorithm.

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Eric Schmidt Defends Google Tax Avoidance; Google Instant Previews Out of Search Results

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:25:15 +0000

Google Enhanced Campaigns Get Social Annotations, Availability For Mobile App Advertisers; Google chairman Eric Schmidt defends tax avoidance policies; Google Reconsideration Request Guidelines; Google Instant Previews Removed From Search Results ; Google Changes Authorship Interface and Removes More By. Also, Kristine Schachinger from SitesWithoutwalls reports from PubCon New Orleans 2013.

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International SEO Roundtable Part 2

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:47:02 +0000

International SEO Roundtable Part 2 as Jim and Dave discusses the joy and pain of taking SEO overseas with American based SEOs Aaron Aders from Relevance, Frank Watson from Kangamurra Media, Dave Snyder from Coypress and David Portney from Portent Interactive.

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International SEO Roundtable Part 1

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:39:42 +0000

International SEO Roundtable Part 1 as Jim and Dave discusses the joy and pain of taking SEO overseas or into the Americas. We first hear from international based SEOs with David Harry and Terry Van Horne from SEO Dojo, Mikkel DeMib Svendsen, Chris Adams from gShift Labs and Tony Hutchcroft.

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Embedding Data Analytics; Ann Smarty on Making the Move to America

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:11:51 +0000

Talking Embedding Data Analytics with Jennifer Francis, VP Analytic Solutions at Apption Software, plus Jim sits down 1-on-1 with Ann Smarty, the Community and Branding Manager for Internet Marketing Ninjas.

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Facebook Phone and Local Search; Anonymous Hacks Twitter, Flickr in North Korea; Future of Digital Content Distribution

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:31:09 +0000

Facebook unveiled a new way to integrate its network on Android devices, Facebook Home, which represents a rethinking of how Facebook exists on Android phones. Plus, Facebook Nearby Is Now Facebook Local Search; Anonymous Hacks North Koreas Twitter and Flickr Pages; Also, Jim and Dave theorize on the future of digital content distribution thanks to the recent original programming offerings by Netflix.

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SES New York 2013 Highlights; Google Same-Day Retail Delivery

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:27:26 +0000

SES New York 2013 Highlights as Jim returns from the tradeshow, plus Google goes head to head with Amazon with new same-day retail delivery in San Francisco; Google picks 8,000 winners to test internet-connected glasses. Finally, a weird story about how a store in Australia is alerting would-be customers that theyll be charged 5 dollars if they come in to browse but dont buy anything.

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Facebook To Incorporate the Hashtag; Google Panda To Be Integrated Into Search Algorithm

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:25:19 +0000

Facebook Working on Incorporating the Hashtag, Google Panda To Be Integrated Into The Search Algorithm ala Panda Everflux as Jim joins us from SMX Toronto 2013 and Dave brings us the latest headlines

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Facebook Redesigns Continue With Timeline

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:19:06 +0000

Facebook Redesigns Continue With Timeline as Search Engine Journal writer Michelle Stinson-Ross join Jim and guest host David Harry aka @TheGypsy to discuss upcoming changes to Facebook that she recently wrote an article about entitled Facebook Redesigns Continue With Timeline: Community Managers Be Ready

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Microsoft Pays 732 Million Dollar Fine; Google Penalizes Another Link Network

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 13:05:16 +0000

Microsoft Forced To Pay 732 Million Dollar Fine After Google Rats Them Out; Google + Makes Changes; Google Penalizes Another Link Network: SAPE Links; Matt Cutts Explains We Do not Ban Sites Critical Of Google, But Here Is Why We Do Penalize Sites.

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Effective Strategies for Driving Website Revenue

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 21:46:28 +0000

Effective Strategies for Driving Website Revenue and State of Affiliate Marketing with Evan Weber from Experience Advertising, plus Marissa Mayer and her No Work From Home decree and a New Google Interface in the works?

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Hacker Prevention and Website Privacy and Safety Awareness

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:28:42 +0000

After the Hacking group Anonymous became the latest victim of a Twitter hack, Jim and Dave explore Hacker Prevention and Website Privacy and Safety Awareness with Josh Dennis of WiredNation and Kristine Schachinger of SitesWithoutWalls.

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Marissa Mayer: Sour on Yahoo-Microsoft Search Deal; Google+: Higher Rankings to Content Tied to Verified Profiles

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:50:26 +0000

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made comments at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday expressing disappointment With the existing Yahoo-Microsoft Search Deal.

Jim and Dave discuss, plus bring on Bria Jordan from to talk about some excerpts from Eric Schmidts upcoming book, The New Digital Age where he discusses Google Plus and how Google Will Give Higher Rankings to Content Tied to Verified Profiles.

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Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns; Pinterest Marketing: An Hour a Day

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:23:35 +0000

10 Things You Need to Know About Google AdWords Enhanced Campaigns as Jeff Ferguson From Fang Digital discusses his recent blog post. Jennifer Evans Cario from SugarSpun Marketing tells us about her new book, Pinterest Marketing: An Hour a Day.

In the news, Yahoo! Is throwing Google Ads onto certain Yahoo properties and co-branded sites through AdSense for Content and AdMob; Michelin Guides failed to renew its domain, someone else claims and Michelin sends a cease and desist and are threatening further legal action. Jim and Dave fill us in.

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What Happened After Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Came Back From North Korea?

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:29:05 +0000

Jim offers some commentary following Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and his recent visit to Korea with SitesWithoutWalls.com Founder/Consultant Kristine Schachinger, Reliable SEO and SEO Training Dojo Partner Terry Van Horne and SEW Weekly Host Thom Craver.

Jim wrote the following thoughts prior to the show. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt is a very dangerous man. Aside from being one of the primary shredders of personal privacy around, Mr. Schmidt is proving to be a danger to world peace. Its been what, like, eight or nine months since North Korea freaked everyone out by announcing new nuclear weapons or missile tests. Recently, the hermit state looked as if it was trying to rejoin the world of nations announcing sweeping economic and industrial improvement plans.

Earlier this month, Schmidt and his daughter Sophie were in North Korea led by US diplomat and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Sophie Schmidt wrote an extremely candid blog about her experience, comparing life in North Korea with the Truman Show. Eric Schmidt wrote about how the North Koreans control information via a dual structured Internet/Intranet and by limiting the capabilities of smart-phones available to North Koreans.

Earlier today, North Korea announced a new wave of underground nuclear weapons tests combined with a resurgent missile program targeting the west coast of the United States. You know whats on the west coast of the United States? Eric Schmidts office is three miles from the coast.

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Facebook Graph Search Impacting Business Pages

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:46:19 +0000

Discussion on how Facebook Graph Search Impacting Business Pages with Michelle Stinson Ross, who recently wrote about it in a recent Search Engine Journal article. Mobile Moxie CEO Cindy Krum joins the Facebook Graph Search panel discussion and also offers some commentary on what to expect in the mobile landscape in 2013.

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Google Privacy FTC Anti-Trust Ruling Followup

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:50:05 +0000

Jim and Dave followup the Google Privacy FTC Anti-Trust Ruling; They continue their discussion on online privacy plus a discussion on keywords and user intent.

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FTC Google Antitrust Investigation Findings Revealed; What is Google Doing with Google Plus?

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:10:19 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission closes its antitrust review and announces Googles services are good for users and good for competition. Plus, Jim and Dave discuss What is Google Doing with Google Plus? as they discuss Google Plus and personal privacy with Kristine Schachinger from SitesWithoutWalls.

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SEO in 2013, the Old and the New

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:02:16 +0000

SEO in 2013, the Old and the New as Jim and Dave welcome David Harry (Owner and Sifu at SEO Training Dojo), Terry Van Horne (Partner of Reliable SEO and SEO Training Dojo), and Bria Jordan (Digital Always Media).

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Hacking Software Guru John McAfee Contained; Matt Cutts Skype Account Hacked

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:38:30 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the ongoing saga of Software guru John McAfee, who recently suffered two small heart attacks while in detention in Guatemala. McAfee is considered a suspect in the fatal shooting of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November on the Belize island where both men lived.

In another story of hacking, Google Web Spam Team Head Matt Cutts Shares His Account Hack Experience. He explained how and why his Skype account was hacked on Google+. He explains that the Skype account he rarely uses was hacked a month or so ago and he realized recently when he needed to use it for an internet radio show.

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Google Analytics Report on Search Marketers Mobile Focus in 2013; SES Chicago 20

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:21:33 +0000

A Google Analytics report presented during the Mobile Marketing and Measurement Panel at SES Chicago 2012 says that 87 percent of search marketers will focus on mobile in 2013. Also, Matt Cutts discusses Google Disavow in new YouTube video, meanwhile a webmaster disavows 100 percent of links and still has Google link penalty.

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President Obama's Second Term Tech Agenda

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:25:09 +0000

Looking into President Obama's Second Term Tech Agenda as Jim and Dave discuss what web issues are the Obama administration likely to deal with? They welcome SEMPO President/ Rosetta Dir. of Thought Leadership/SEO Rockstars host Chris Boggs and Search Engine Journal writer Michelle Stinson Ross who wrote a recent article on the subject entitled Barack Obama: President of the Tech Era.

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Google Autocomplete Findings From Hurricane Sandy; Disney Purchase of LucasFilm LTD Editorial

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 17:02:25 +0000

Aside from Google Autocomplete Findings the aftermath and recovery following Hurricane/ Super Storm Sandy and an article on Penguins and unnatural linking messages?, Jim and Dave also give some commentary on the Disney purchase of LucasFilm LTD along with an exclusive interview with the new owner.

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Google Disavow Tool; Google Analytics Event Tracking

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 01:42:52 +0000

Google introduces a tool that enables you to disavow links to your site. Jim and Dave analyze how this tool will help Google compete in semantic search, with the likes of Wolfram Alpha and Apple. Plus, figuring out track event commands in Google Analytics.

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WebmasterWorld Forum to IM Ninjas; Google Stock Plunges

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 18:14:10 +0000

WebmasterWorld Forum to IM Ninjas as the popular Webmaster and SEO forums, WebmasterWorld, have been sold to Jim Boykin and Internet Marketing Ninjas.; Google Stock Plunges 8 percent, according to Reuters, after the companys third quarter earnings apparently leaked ahead of schedule on Thursday. Jim and Dave also give Webcology listener Jim Mogensen a site review of his site RentWisconsinCabins.com.

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Google Updates Above Fold Page Layout Algorithm; Panda, Penguin, and Authors

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:30:44 +0000

Google Updates Above the Fold Page Layout Algorithm;Exploiting Facebook Privacy Settings. Jim and Dave speak with Kim Krause Berg (Founder of Cre8asiteForums) who has joined the Internet Marketing Ninjas, about the change and she previews her participation on an upcoming Pubcon Vegas 2012 panel on Panda, Penguin, and Authors.

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The Hats Worn in SEO: White Hat, Gray Hat, Black Hat and...

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:52:17 +0000

SitesWithoutWalls founder Kristine Schachinger defends her Search Engine Watch article titled SEO 101: Meet the White Hats, Gray Hats, Black Hats and Asshats as Jim and Dave speak with Kristine and the
CEO of Fang Digital Jeff Ferguson.

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Search Coming Back to Yahoo; Facebook Purges Fake Profiles

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:11:02 +0000

CEO Marissa Mayer announces Search is coming back to Yahoo; Facebook announces a purge of all fake profiles; Google celebrates its 14th birthday; Jim and Dave also discuss a SEOMoz blog post entitled How Many SEO Consultants Actually Know What They're Talking About?

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Yahoo Closes 7.6 Billion Dollar Deal with Alibaba

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 07:36:03 +0000

Yahoo closes 7.6 billion dollar deal with Alibaba Group, which will give Alibaba greater autonomy as it prepares to pursue an initial public offering of stock within the next three years, while rewarding Yahoo for one of the few moves that has gone right for the troubled company in the past few years.

Jim and Dave also discuss full-blown SEO campaigns in a multivenue universe, plus news on the announcement of a virtual PubCon.

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Cyber Security Measures to Avoid Repeat of GoDaddy Outage; DWExpo 2012 Vegas Preview

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:14:34 +0000

Following up on the major outage web hosting company GoDaddy suffered that took down its website, servers, and DNS infrastructure completely for several hours. We hear about some cyber security measures that you should apply with Carolyn Shelby, the Director of Search for Tribune Company and 435 Digital. We also preview the annual Digital World Expo in Las Vegas later this month with conference chair Shawn Rorick and featured speaker Kristine Schachinger.

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Facebook Privacy Roundtable

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 17:00:32 +0000

Jim and Dave host a Facebook Privacy Roundtable discussion, including third party apps and what they record, kids and privacy and the importance of privacy with the author of The Last Original Idea and the founding partner at Digital Always Media Alan K'necht and Michelle Stinson-Ross, the Founder and Principal Consultant at Firestarter Social Media.

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RavenTools Revered for Helping Rehab Employee; Social Media Hits and Misses

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:13:09 +0000

RavenTools Revered for Helping Rehab Employee Recovering from an accident that resulted in a coma. Plus, Jim and Dave discuss some Social Media Hits and Misses, and how Samsung traded a new Galaxy phone for a cool dragon drawing.

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Oatmeal Hits Tesla Museum Campaign Goal; Microsoft New Logo Change

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:45:33 +0000

Less than a week after launching a fundraising campaign to build a Tesla museum, comic website The Oatmeal has reached 850k in donations. Microsoft make a new logo change, and the words Search and Social avoid the trademark.

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SES San Francisco 2012 Recap; Value of Facebook

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:01:18 +0000

SES San Francisco 2012 Recap; Evaluating The Value of Facebook as its stock price continues to drop; Twitter founders Twitter, Biz Stone and Evan Williams start new Medium social publishing site.

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Gmail Results in Google SERPs; Suspicious Facebook Pages

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 22:20:23 +0000

Google to pull Gmail information into search engine results; Google Plus and rationalization? Jim discusses these and more with guest co-host Thom Craver, Senior Technical SEO Manager at TopRank Online Marketing

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Facebook Click Fraud and The State of Cyberlaw

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 22:18:26 +0000

Facebook Click Fraud? Jim and guest host Miranda Miller from Search Engine Watch welcome Brian Carter for a discussion about Facebook advertising. Internet Law Center founder Bennett Kelley also joins us to discuss the state of cyberlaw.

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Comparing Google Penguin and Panda: Drops in Rankings

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 22:34:07 +0000

Comparing Penguin and Panda: Drops in Rankings as Google rolls out the latest update to its Panda algorithm. Jim and Dave differentiate the significance of the drops in ranking that the Google Penguin and Panda algorithm have created.

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Analyzing the Hire of New Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:25:59 +0000

Analyzing the Hire of New Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, what kind of expectations will she need to meet, and how much time will she get to turn the Yahoo ship around.

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Yahoo Voice Passwords Stolen; Social Media Camp Victoria 2012 Recap

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:30:37 +0000

Social Media Camp Victoria 2012 Recap with Motivational Speaker Fred Sarkari; 450000 Yahoo Voice passwords stolen in data breach; A Beloved and Respected Female Search Engine Industry Journalist is Threatened.

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DuckDuckGo Founder Gabriel Weinberg

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 21:02:49 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with DuckDuckGo Founder Gabriel Weinberg. Named by Time Magazine as one of The 50 Best Websites of 2011, DuckDuckGo is a simple, straightforward search engine that is considered reminiscent of early Google.

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More Facebook Ranting; Microsoft launches Surface; Anatomy of an Internal Link

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:44:45 +0000

More Facebook Ranting; Microsoft launches Surface, a line of tablet computers running the Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT operating systems; Anatomy of an Internal Link.

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SES Toronto 2012 Observations; ICANN gTLDs Revealed

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:44:33 +0000

Jim offers some SES Toronto 2012 Observations, including how SEOs should plan for Madison Avenue to look to them for help. Jim and Dave also discuss ICANN and the announcement of thousands of gTLDs revealed.

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Webcology Reaches 200 Podcasts

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:22:42 +0000

Webcology Reaches 200 Podcasts as Jim and Dave reflects on the news that spoke about during that span. Facebook is reportedly testing out controls that would allow users under the age of 13 to participate under parental supervision. LinkedIn Password Leak is Confirmed after it was reported that over 6.4 million LinkedIn passwords had been leaked onto the internet.

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Infographics and Data Visualization; YouTube Comedy Videos

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:30:29 +0000

Infographics and Data Visualization and how much to use them over blog posts or videos; YouTube Comedy Videos discussed with Darryl Lecraw from Fox Hound Digital and SkitforBrains.tv.

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Facebook IPO Fallout; Xoomfile Version 3 Software Launched

Fri, 25 May 2012 14:32:05 +0000

Facebook fallout from Wall Street following its initial public offering, ,Jim and Dave analyze the past 7 days, plus they discuss an article titled Linking to Promote Keyword Clusters.

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Microsoft to Involve Facebook; Facebook Ads and GM Cars

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:25:54 +0000

Microsoft plans to roll out a revised version of its Bing search engine that includes a way to involve Facebook friends in the search process. Plus, Micheline Maynard discusses a recent Forbes article on Whats The Real Problem: Facebooks Ads, Or GM Cars?

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Penguin and Panda; LinkedIn purchase of SlideShare: Facebook IPO Roadshow

Fri, 11 May 2012 01:49:47 +0000

Dave discusses his appearance on Ecom Experts and how ecommerce is being affected by the Penguin and Panda Updates. Also, the LinkedIn purchase of SlideShare otherwise referred to by Jim as Powerpoint in the Clouds for 118.8 million dollars. Plus, a look into the Facebook IPO Roadshow as the social network looks to pitch its initial public stock offering.

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Google Penguin and Panda Updates; SMX Toronto 2012 Recap

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:01:35 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the Google Penguin and Panda Updates with Michael David, the author of WordPress 3.0 Search Engine Optimization. Plus Jim recaps the highlights from SMX Toronto 2012.

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YummyMummyClub; Parked Domain Pages; Inbound Link Counts

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:56:10 +0000

We learn about the YummyMummyClub as we speak with journalist, TV personality, former MuchMusic VJ, writer and composer Erica Ehm.

Headlines this week include Google Going After Parked Domain Pages? Watch Your Inbound Link Counts; Torontos Village Idiot Mayor Makes Boing Boing.

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Facebook buys Instagram: Good or Bad for the IPO; Yahoo Layoffs and Reorganization

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:19:20 +0000

Facebook buys Instagram: Good or Bad to Buy Before for the IPO, and will they try to buy Pinterest. Jim and Dave also discusses the Yahoo Layoffs and what CEO Scott Thompson plans for reorganization.

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Unnatural Links; Deindexing Blog Networks; 50 New Google Search Changes

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:24:20 +0000

Google Cracking Down on Unnatural Links, Deindexing Blog Networks; New Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson sweeps out 2,000 employees in purge; Breaking Down 50 New Google Search Changes.

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Over Optimization Penalty; Evolution of Google With Social Search

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 08:18:53 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Google and the Over Optimization Penalty that Matt Cutts announced to allegedly level the playing ground. They also discuss a Bill Slawski post on his SEO By The Sea blog about the Evolution of Google With Social Search.

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Former Googler Opens Up About Google +, Privacy; Forbes Rant

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:26:25 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how former Googler James Whittaker openly blogs about about how Google is now obsessed with harvesting peoples private information and saying their social media efforts with Google + have been a failure threatened by Facebook. Jim also serves an extensive Forbes rant.

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Google +1 Button Goes Red and Gives Thanks; How To Blog Posts

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:03:41 +0000

Google has made a couple of changes involving the +1 buttons, including that the color scheme is changing to white and red, plus Signed-in Google users can now thank others for hitting the +1 button. Jim and Dave also discuss a Search Engine Journal post entitled Are We Putting Ourselves Out of Business With All These How To Blog Posts?

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Resources for Stocking Your Internet Marketing Toolkit

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:59:48 +0000

Resources for Stocking Your Internet Marketing Toolkit, Dave takes us through a Search Engine Watch post that helps us separate the good from the bad, the expensive from the inexpensive and figure out how to tell when the price difference is worth it?
Jim and Dave discuss the Death of Conservative activist Andrew Breitbart that lead to lots of negative Twitter comments.

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Link Building and Analytics

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:30:23 +0000

Talking Link Building and Analytics as Citation Labs Founder Garrett French and SitesWithoutWalls founder Kristine Schachinger join Dave and guest host Terry Van Horne.

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SOPA and PIPA Equivalents C-11 and C-30 Threaten Canada

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:55:49 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Bill C-11, the Canadian equivalent to SOPA and PIPA in the US and how the entertainment industry is lobbying to persuade the Canadian government to accede to their demands for highly punitive restrictions on copyrights. They also comment on Bill C-30, the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.

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Google Screenwise, Chrome for Android, Blackberry 10 OS

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:35:01 +0000

Google Screenwise Pays You To Give Up Privacy and Surf The Web With Chrome; Chrome Web browser comes to Android phones and tablets; Blackberry 10 operating system coming soon.

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Facebook IPO, Living and Dying on Search Analytics

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:54:31 +0000

Facebook filed papers Wednesday to raise at least 5 billion dollars and begin to sell stock this spring.How to Understand Your Google Not Provided Traffic.

Jim and Dave also discuss a Search Engine Watch article from Miranda Miller entitled Google, Bing and Yahoo in Partnership to Sell Top Organic Local Listings?. They uncover some reported irregularities

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Everything is Measurable. What about Google Search Plus Your World?

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:49:11 +0000

Everything is measurable. How does that idea relate to Google Search Plus Your World? Jim notes that many old-time SEOs are suddenly consulting to new tool makers. This indicates A) a recgonition of SEO as important and B) recognition that changes make current/old metrics obsolete.

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SOPA and PIPA Postponed

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:35:36 +0000

The Controversial Protect IP Act legislation (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) asd Congress declares it needs more debate. SEO Rockstars host, SEMPO President and Director of Thought Leadership at Rosetta Chris Boggs gives us his take.

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Looking Inside the BlueGlass

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:43:55 +0000

Looking Inside the BlueGlass as Jim and Dave welcome BlueGlass VP of Marketing / Managing Partner at BlueGlass Interactive, Loren Baker and the newly appointed Chairman of the Board Richard Zwicky.

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New Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson; Search for Santorum

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:54:20 +0000

Jim and Dave analyze the hiring of new Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson, the task he has at hand of restoring the search engine to prominence and the overwhelming factors that he will have to overcome.

They also discuss Rick Santorums near win in the Iowa caucus results and how it rehashed his Google problem for when you search for Santorum on Google.

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Internet Marketers Year in Review 2011 Roundtable Part 2

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:06:05 +0000

Internet Marketers Year in Review 2011 Roundtable with panelists Jonathan Allen (Director, Search Engine Watch), Rhea Drysdale (Chief Executive Officer of Outspoken Media), Bill Slawski (SEO consultant and author of SEO by the Sea), Thom Craver (Web and Database specialist for the Saunders College at Rochester Institute of Technology), Cindy Krum (Chief Executive Officer at MobileMoxie, LLC) and David Harry (Owner and Sifu at SEO Training Dojo).

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Blocking Search Results; AdWords Remarketing

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:57:46 +0000

Former Formula One President Max Mosley is hoping legal action will force Google to block search results linking him to an alleged Nazi-themed tryst with several women.

Jim and Dave also discuss AdWords remarketing and video from Matt Cutts that discusses How can good sites that don't know about SEO rank well.

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Facebook Absentee Experiment; Cyber Week Records

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:11:28 +0000

Facebook Exploits Reveals Zuckerberg Private Images, Cyber Week Breaks 4 Records, Nears 6 Billion Dollar Mark and Jim, reveals the results of a social media experiment where he stayed absent off of Facebook for a whole week.

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Tech and Marketing Strategies for Video

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 23:08:09 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Tech and Marketing Strategies for Video with with Jake Athey from Vitomy.com and Greg Jarboe from SEO-PR. Also, Judge Orders ALL Search Engines, Social Networks to De-index Seized Websites; Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, ISPs, All Served With Streaming Site Blocking Demand.

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Stop Online Piracy Act; Skywire Media Mobile Solutions

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:49:16 +0000

Google, Yahoo and Facebook are joined together in opposition of the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA, which is said to help U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders fight online traffic in copyrighted intellectual property and ensuing revenue and job losses.

Jim and Dave also speak with Nicole Hurley, Sales Executive at SkyWire Media, Inc, a mobile solutions provider heavily involved with the Hospitality industry and more specifically gaming.

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No More Adobe Flash for Mobile; Google To Penalize For Ads

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:49:49 +0000

Adobe will no longer continue to develop a Flash player for mobile and it instead concentrating on HTML5; Google To Start Penalizing Sites for Too Many Ads;A Possible Solution to Google Panda and its Fresher Results; Should Amazon Buy Yahoo?

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Google Search Algorithm Gets Fresh Change

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:17:26 +0000

Google announces a new search algorithm change that helps make the search results fresher. Besides for the results being fresher, the results will change for about 35 percent of all searches. Jim and Dave discuss the implications of this new change as reported in SearchEngineLand.

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RIM Evangelists; Google Encrypted Search; Bing CTR Position

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:50:27 +0000

Research In Motion or RIM, losing ground in a market that its BlackBerry smartphone helped to build, is adding developer evangelists in Silicon Valley to change perceptions, plus SEOs Strike Out as Google Encrypts Signed-in Search Data and Bing Top Position Gets 9.66 percent CTR, Lower Total Page 1 CTR than Google.

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Social Media Policy

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:01:50 +0000

RIM May Face Claims as Operators Refund BlackBerry Customers; The Google Doesnt Get Platforms Family Intervention Memo. Also, Jim and talk speak with Jure Klepic, a Vancouver, BC-based attorney who specializes in helping companies develop social media policies.

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Looking Back at the Legacy of Steve Jobs

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:32:48 +0000

Looking Back at the Legacy of Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs following his untimely death with Former Apple exec and NoNoyz President David Szetela.

We also discuss linkbuilding and the Search Marketing Anatomy with Aaron Anders, co-founder and CEO of Slingshot SEO.

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Warren Buffet Owned Business Wire Receives U.S. Patent

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:50:03 +0000

Business Wire, a company operated by Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway, has been awarded a U.S. patent for the technological process of optimizing and distributing press releases to maximize their ability to be found and tracked in the search engines. Jim and Dave discuss the implications.

Also, Jim and Dave welcome Mike Roberts, Founder of Spyfu - makers of one of the worlds best competitive recon tools

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Recent Facebook Changes: Pros and Cons Roundtable

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:31:18 +0000

Interesting News Any Time You Visit, New Safety Tools Launch, Improved Friend Lists and now the TimeLine, a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. Jim and Dave welcome guests panelists Kristine Schachinger and Miranda Miller to discuss.

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Expanding Internet Marketing to Asian Markets

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:08:31 +0000

Expanding Internet Marketing to Asian Markets with David Temple
Global CSMB Search Lead for Dell. He discusses if Bing has helped to carve a path into China for western businesses, and whatever became of Yahoo and Alibaba and the search results with Baidu and Google.

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Google Acquires Zagat; Yahoo CEO Fallout

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:06:55 +0000

Google has acquired Zagat, one of the most well-known names in restaurant reviews, in a move to improve its local products, which are now run by Google VP Marissa Mayer.

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Content Creation Now and Going Forward Part 2

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:41:59 +0000

This roundtable discussion concludes with where content/SERPs are going in 2012 via mobile, local, segmented SERPs, etc... They discuss what to expect in 2012 environment and how to create the SERPs, social, display, and additional content going forward.

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Content Creation Now and Going Forward Part 1

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:22:44 +0000

Define content in terms of social, video, image, text, tweets, etc, plus they get into how webmasters can deal with various types of content and types of search/searchers.They also discuss social media departments and content in different venues.

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Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO; Bing SEO Fundamentals; Google Multi-Channel Fun

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:24:58 +0000

In the news, Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO; Bing Gives a List of 18 SEO Fundamentals. Guest Thom Craver discusses Google Multi-Channel Funnels and how we can discover untapped opportunities in your conversion path. We also welcome Michael Mire of GetMeListed.net.

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Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO; Bing SEO Fundamentals; Google Multi-Channel Funnels

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:24:58 +0000

London Riots Generated by Social Media

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:33:51 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Kristine Schachinger to discuss London Riots and Social Media
and the potential of Social Media, specifically BlackBerry IMs, Facebook and Twitter, plus the FTC Investigation into Google centers on Android blocking competitors services preferencial placements for Google Places, Shopping Results and financial data and how Motorola Threatens Android and partner Google.

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London Riots Generated by Social Media

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:33:51 +0000

Google Gathering Nortel Patents; Digital World Expo Preview

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:28:04 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Googles recent bid of 900 million dollars for 6000 patents belonging to the bankrupt telecommunications company Nortel, plus they speak with Shawn Rorick, Author of Emerging Marketer and Organizer of the upcoming Digital World Expo.

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Google Gathering Nortel Patents; Digital World Expo Preview

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:28:04 +0000

RIM Layoffs; SES San Fran 2011 Keynote Preview

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 21:41:16 +0000

BlackBerry maker RIM announced it will lay off 2,000 people, or 11 per cent of its workforce. Jim and Dave discuss, plus they speak with Personal Life Media founder Susan Bratton. She previews her conversion triggers keynote presentation at SES San Francisco 2011 as well as a new product launch.

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Local SEO and Spotify U.S. Rollout

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:45:02 +0000

We talk Local SEO with Michael Mire and Ravdeep Sawhney from GetMeListed. Also, Megan Berry, Marketing Manager for Klout (the standard measure of online influence), tells us about the U.S. rollout of Spotify.

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MySpace, Specific Media and Justin Timberlake; Fark and Why We Love it

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:10:12 +0000

Specific Media, a digital media company, announced its acquisition of social networking destination Myspace for 35 million dollars and one of its investors is Justin Timberlake, Jim and Dave analyze the deal. Jim and Dave also welcome Drew Curtis, the Founder of the popular news aggregator, Fark.

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SES Toronto 2011 Highlights

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 07:51:35 +0000

Jim and Dave recap and give their SES Toronto 2011 Highlights from networking to sessions to the atmosphere. We also hear an exclusive interview Dave conducts with the team from Brafton.

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CodeGuard; Facebook Facial Recognition

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:01:45 +0000

Jonathan Hochman and Jonah Stein introduce us to CodeGuard, which provides website backup, monitoring, and malware remediation services to small and medium businesses.

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Gmail Hacked in China; Standardized Search Results

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 22:03:25 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how Google announced that hundreds of its Gmail accounts have been compromised by hackers based in China. Google said the attack targeted senior government officials and military personnel from the United States and other countries, Chinese political activists, and journalists.

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SEO Roundtable: Ethics and Self-Regulation

Thu, 26 May 2011 07:55:39 +0000

We wrap up our two-part edition of Webcology with a lively discussion of SEO ethics and industry regulation. With two hot-button issues like that you know our panel of Alan Bleiweiss, Ben Cook, Steve Gerenscer, David Harry, Anthony Verre and Terry Van Horn, all highly opinionated people, wont be pulling any punches!

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SEO Roundtable: Outing Other SEOs

Thu, 26 May 2011 07:47:56 +0000

This two-part edition of Webcology kicks off with SEO panelists Alan Bleiweiss, Ben Cook, Steve Gerenscer, David Harry, Anthony Verre and Terry Van Horn debating the merits of Outing black hat practices to Google and the mainstream media. Does outing make the web a better place or is it just the SEO version of tattling?

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Linkbuilding and The Debut of the LinkedIn IPO

Thu, 19 May 2011 19:51:09 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Linkbuilding, the debut of the LinkedIn IPO; Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog Closing May 31; The Google Search Team (Finally) Gets Its Own Blog and How Facebook Is Changing Online Business.

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Facebook Hires PR Firm to Smear Google

Thu, 12 May 2011 19:29:53 +0000

Jim talks with Brasco about news leaking that Facebook hired a large PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, to attack Google. Jim also weighs in on Microsoft buying Skype, the impending release of Google's Chromebook and Google I/O.

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Google Voice Search; Facebook to Buy Skype?

Fri, 06 May 2011 03:54:51 +0000

Google is reportedly looking into voice-activated search that can be integrated into the Google.com search engine once the experiment is complete. Jim welcomes his Digital Always Media colleague Alan Knecht.

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Facebook Deals vs. Groupon

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:38:46 +0000

Jim joins us from SMX Toronto 2011, and speaks with Dave on the newest daily deal competition for Groupon, Facebook Deals.

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Panda Rolls Across the Atlantic

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:50:34 +0000

Jim and Dave are joined by Dr. Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics to discuss UK winners and losers in the recent Google Algorithm updates.

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The Top 5 Things You Should Know About Google Adwords

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:30:28 +0000

Jim and Dave interview the brilliant Laura Thieme. Laura will talk about Integrated SEO & PPC Tactics, Top 5 Things You Should Know about Google Adwords to Save Money & Increase ROI, The Importance of Trend Analysis, PANDA and much more.

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Better Ads in Gmail, Panda Update and Search 3.0

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:02:45 +0000

Jim and Dave ponder these topics: Does Google have moles in other large Tech firms? Panda update promoting big brand sites, Better ads in Gmail, Search 3.0 and Epsilons Security Breach Exposes Troubling Trend.

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Google +1 Button; SEO is Not Dead

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 19:23:50 +0000

Google announces its own rival against the Facebook Like buttons, the +1 button. It launches as part of Googleâ€™s search engine, allowing you to â€œ+1â€³ the search results and ads that you like. And in a few months, itâ€™ll be arriving at a web site near you.

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Michael Mire and Peter Prestipino

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:09:30 +0000

Jim and Dave talk with Michael Mire, Co-Founder of Get Me Listed, a local marketing platform for Business and SEO Professionals. They also talk to Peter Prestipino editor in chief of Website Magazine, and his new book Web 360: The Fundamentals of Web Success. It addresses the fundamental elements of achieving success on the Web

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Google Farmer aka Panda Aftermath

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:21:13 +0000

Jim and Dave uncover new Information From Google coming out of SMX West 2011, plus Christian Wilson introduces us to asocialsearch, which lays a directory of companies which include Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Meetup, Blogs and 4square pages.

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Internet Privacy Implications

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:34:00 +0000

Jim interviews Dr. Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada. They discuss how the Commission forced Facebook to alter its privacy provisions, plus they discuss personal threats to individuals stemming from loss of privacy, the future of privacy, technologies and consumer education.

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Google Antitrust Investigation

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:51:07 +0000

Jim and Dave analyze the JCPenney SEO controversy, plus The Texas attorney general is leading an antitrust investigation of Google wants to know how Google determines the prices for its AdWords paid search advertising program and how sites are ranked in Google's search results. Also, tune in for a stimulating conversation on linkbuilding with SEOMoz founder Rand Fishkin.

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Google Marketing Executive Missing in Egypt

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:58:29 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the disappearance of the Head of Marketing for the Middle East and North Africa for Google, Wael Ghonim, a young Google executive who has vanished among the chaos in Cairo in the middle of civil unrest.

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Conversion Optimization and Sketchy SEO

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:34:21 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Conversion Optimization, improving bounce rates and updating websites, plus they discuss Groupon Target Department Stores expansion into Canada They also discuss a SEORoundtable post that talks about Googles Matt Cutts and JohnMu are forced to out a sketchy SEO company.

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Integrated Marketing

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 23:29:35 +0000

Jim speaks with Liana Evans, CEO, and Becky Ryan, COO of
LiBeck Integrated Marketing, which provides integrated marketing services that focus on cohesively bringing all marketing channels together.

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Internet Marketing Year in Review 2010

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:07:00 +0000

New Technology, Mobile Paid Ads, Changes Predicted to come among one of the major search engines as Jim and Dave give their Internet Marketing Year in Review with a look into 2011.

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Net Neutrality Passes

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:05:00 +0000

This week, FCC Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve controversial net neutrality rules. Jim and give opposing views on the new rules imposed.

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Search Headlines of 2010

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Search Headlines of 2010 including changes in the Google algorithm,the ongoing evolution of social media , the attempted purchase of Groupon and internet privacy are discussed.

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Leveraging Trust For Better Conversion

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:04:00 +0000

Leveraging Trust For Better Conversion as we talk to Shane Keats, research analyst at McAfee.com, about McAfee Secure and how online retailers can increase their conversion rates during the Holidays by leveraging trust marks.

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Google Boutiques Launch

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:03:00 +0000

Google Boutiques Launches as Boutiques.com: a personalized shopping experience that lets you find and discover fashion goods, by creating your own curated boutique or through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makersâ€”celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers.

Jim and Dave also speak with the author of the book The Last Original Idea: A Cynic’s View of Internet Marketing, Alan K’necht.

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Veterans Day Call to Action

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:02:00 +0000

Veterans Day Call to Action as Jim speaks out about the issues that veterans are dealing with lack of government support and funding. Also, what the broadcast networks think of Google TV and more.

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Twitter Promoted Tweets in Google

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Twitter Promoted Tweets in Google with Local seach expert Michael Mire from admiregroup and getlisted.net, plus a discussion on Blekko and a Michael Gray blog post entitled Is Flash Bad for SEO?

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Google Places Incorporated Into Organic SERPs

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Google Places incorporated into the organic SERPs. as Google makes some major changes in how they will display their local search results. Jim and Dave analyze the changes with Melissa Fach from SEOAware.

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Facebook Freedom of Information

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:57:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how Facebook announced Wednesday that its 500 million users can request information tied to their user IDs be sent via an e-mail., including likes, wall posts, friends list, as well as shared photos, articles, videos, etc.

Plus, they discuss a blog post from Search Engine Journal that says Search Engine Journal is A Slap in the SEO Face.

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Google Income Shifting Through Tax Loopholes

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:59:00 +0000

Google cut its taxes by 3.1 billion dollars in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda, Jim explains.

Plus an interview with the makers of a new Link Building Toolset, Ontolo co-founders Garrett French and Ben Willis.

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Bing Uses Facebook Data in Search

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:58:00 +0000

Bing Uses Facebook Data in Search as Jim and Dave discuss a recent Web Pro News blog post entitled Are Social Signals the New PageRank?

Also, Marissa Mayer vice president of search and user experience for Google has changed roles in the company to head up Googles local service operations.

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Google Instant: One Week Later

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:56:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss a recent blog post Jessica Bowman of SEOinHouse entitled Google Instant: One Week Later, Thinking About Keyword Research.

They also delve into the new relationship with WordPress and Microsoft Windows Live.

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Wiki-Brands

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:55:00 +0000

Jim speaks with Sean Moffitt and Mike Dover, the authors of the upcoming book called Wiki-Brands: Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace.

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New Twitter Interface

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:54:00 +0000

Kristine Schachinger, CEO of SitesWithoutWalls.com, whom you remember was featured previously on the program sharing her personal experience with social media, Twitter and the Iranian Election Crisis of 2009. She is back to discuss the announcement of Twitter rolling out a new version of its web interface.

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Google Instant: Good or Bad for SEO?

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 16:53:00 +0000

Jim and Dave weight the good and bad of the newly launched Google Instant and how it will affect SEO. Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster.

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Advanced SEO with Gabriel Goldenberg

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:53:00 +0000

Jim welcomes Gabriel Goldenberg, a 21 year old law student who sells professional SEO services through his blog SEO ROI. Gabriel discusses his plans for writing an advanced SEO book.

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SES San Francisco 2010 Review

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:51:00 +0000

Jim recaps his visit to SES San Francisco 2010 and he compares and contrasts the difference in having the show hosted in San Francisco after leaving San Jose.

Dave vents on a click fraud issue and they go over some recent developments coming out of Google.

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Robert Scoble: Tech Evangelist

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:50:00 +0000

Robert Scoble is a top 100 tech blogger, technical evangelist, and author, best known for his blog, Scobleizer. Jim speaks candidly to Robert about his time , as a technical evangelist at Microsoft, his thoughts on blogging , social media, net neutrality, and the philosophy behind being a evangelist.

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SEW Site Labs at SES San Francisco 2010

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:47:00 +0000

SEW Labs are a totally new track, sourced exclusively from the Search Engine Watch community, and SEW chief editor Jonathan Allen introduces us to the new concept coming to SES San Francisco 2010.

Jim and Dave discusses Google-Verizon talks on net neutrality which spark a firestorm of debate.

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Strategies for Engaging in Social Media Marketing

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:46:00 +0000

Jim and Dave interview Liana Evans of Serengeti Communications, and author of Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter and Other Social Media. They are also joined by Local search expert Michael Mire, President of AdMire Marketing.

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Yahoo Switch to Bing Results

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:44:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss what was expected to be inevitable following the Yahoo-Bing deal, that Yahoo is making the Switch to Organic Search Results from Bing.

Plus, Lisa Barone gets a message from the Old Spice guy and the product is promoted via social media outlets YouTube and Twitter.

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Facebook Policies 101

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the impact Facebook is having on marketers, and digs in to the staggering Facebook Statistics. Did you know 1 in 12 people on Earth have a Facebook Profile? Discover how marketers are driving their campaigns on Facebook, and listen as Jim and Dave interview Rafael Montilla an SEO and Media Marketer who claims Facebook disabled his account “for no good reason”, and discusses how it has affected his business.

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Affcon 2010 Denver Recap

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:45:00 +0000

Jim recaps the panels that stood out at Affcon 2010 in Denver, plus he previews the upcoming BlueGlass Conference being held in Los Angeles.

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Best Selling Author and Serial Entrepreneur Joel Comm

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:43:00 +0000

Best Selling Author and Serial Entrepreneur Joel Comm talks to Jim and Dave about his career work in affiliate marketing, his current work social media and mobile marketing and offers up some hints to his upcoming keynote at AffCon 2010 in Denver.

He also comments on the involvement of the federal government when it comes to taxation and net neutrality.

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SES Toronto 2010 and ROI Revolution

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:42:00 +0000

Jim is on location from SES Toronto 2010, and he welcomes back Judith Lewis, Head of Search for Project Metal and Alan Knecht, Founder and President of Knechtology Inc

Dave then speaks to representatives of ROI Revolution Timothy Seward and Michael Rourke, which specializes in data-driven search engine marketing.

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SEO Then and Now

Thu, 27 May 2010 16:41:00 +0000

Judith Lewis, Head of Search for Project Metal joins Jim to preview their upcoming SES Toronto 2010 presentation on SEO Then and Now: What’s the Same? What’s New?. They will cover proven SEO fundamentals, and then update you on the latest trends you cannot afford to miss.

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Facebook Privacy Fallout

Thu, 13 May 2010 16:40:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the fallout following Facebook adding two new security features aimed at keeping personal information safe, plus how the New York Times had Elliot Schrage, vice president for public policy at the company, answer reader questions about Facebook and its approach to privacy.

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Controversy in Search- A Roundtable

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:39:00 +0000

Edward Lewis, Alan Bleiweiss and David Harry join Jim and Dave for a talk about a couple of controversies in the SEO world, including the TopSEOs saga.

Jim also speaks with SEOMoz President Gillian Muessig about the debut of her new WebmasterRadio.FM weekly series CEO Coach.

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Google Under Pressure with Talk of Antitrust, Breakup and Privacy

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:38:00 +0000

Jim runs down the headlines including how Consumer Watchdog calls for antitrust action against Google and a possible breakup.
He also asks who speaks for the SEO Community, based on some recent public commentary, Google being blasted about Buzz and privacy from 10 countries, many of them in Europe.

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Twitter Monetizing and Archiving

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:37:00 +0000

Jim and Dave talk about how every public tweet, ever, since Twitters inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress, the release of a new Twitter revenue model as well as Google Ranking and Page Speed.

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SMX Toronto 2010

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:36:00 +0000

Jim returns following a brief hiatus broadcasting on location from SMX Toronto 2010. He speaks about search visibility with the Founder and SEO Director – Omni Marketing Interactive Shari Thurow and Jeff Quipp, Founder and CEO Search Engine People.

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SMX West 2010 Recap and Canadian Olympic Pride

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:35:00 +0000

Jim and Dave reflect on the Canadian winners from the 2010 Winter Olympics, plus they recap SMX West 2010, including the keynote conversation between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Danny Sullivan.

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US Department of Justice Approves Microsoft-Yahoo Deal

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:31:00 +0000

Jim and Dave relish in the competition from the Winter Olympics, but make time to discuss the latest headlines including the US Department of Justice Approves Microsoft-Yahoo Deal, plus they give their commentary on social search and Google Buzz.

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SEOBullshit.com Profiled

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:30:00 +0000

Jim and Dave welcome SEO Consultant known in the space as theGypsy, the founder of a new controversial website called SEOBullshit.com, which is quoted to endeavour to tread the fine line between personal expression and just being a shitard dickhead.

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Colorado Affiliate Tax Bill Ramifications

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:29:00 +0000

Affiliate Marketers in Colorado are dealing with the possibility of the passage of Bill HB10-1193 introducing the affiliate tax in the State of Colorado by the Appropriations Committee.

Jim and Dave discuss the bill ramifications with David Asseoff, Adperio’s founder, president, and CEO, and Internet Law Center founder Bennett Kelley.

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Bing Might Become Default Search Engine to iPhones?

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss a new report saying that 44 percent of Google users fail to click from Google News to newspaper web sites got some buzz this week. Plus they give their commentary on the possibility of Apple replacing Google as the default search engine on its iPhone with Microsoft Bing.

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Google Drops Censor on Search Results in China

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:28:00 +0000

Google announced this week it will no longer censor search results in China. By no longer censoring search results at the request of the Chinese government, Google may well be preparing to abandon the largest and most expansive Internet market in the world.

Also, Jim and Dave celebrate the 100th episode of Webcology relishing on their past episodes.

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Google Local Business Center Results Emailed to Random Business Leaders

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:26:00 +0000

Google Local Business Center Results Emailed to Random Business Leaders is topic of discussion and Jim is joined by Bill Slawski, CEO of SEO by the SEA and Mike Blumenthal, Owner and Local Marketing Expert of Blumenthals.

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Search Year in Review

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:49:03 +0000

Dave and Jim run down the year of search in review as it applied to WebmasterRadio.FM and the Search industry. They discuss Affiliate Convention, search headlines plus they look ahead to 2010.

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Super Affiliates and Banner Ads

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:21:18 +0000

Rosalind Gardner, author of the Super Affiliate Handbook tells us about her history in affiliate marketing, her current endeavors and her views on the future of the affiliate marketing sector.

MyAds Director of Account Management David Randall tell us about the recently launched Banner Advertising Service on the FOX Audience Network.

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Affiliate Convention Los Angeles 2009 Breakdown

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:24:41 +0000

Jim breaks down the the Affiliate Convention Los Angeles 2009 speaker list and agenda, plus he and Dave reflect on a blog post by Danny Sullivan marking a 10 year milestone for hosting and organizing conferences, plus a huge announcement on the live entertainment for AffiliateBash.

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AdTech New York 2009 Recap

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:58:09 +0000

Dave Davies talks with Jim Hedger who recaps AdTech NY 2009. Highlights include Google Dashboard, the XY7.com NoBull party, Google Bugle and common complications of working abroad at conventions.

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Yahoo Geocities RIP

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:27:40 +0000

Google GPS app for Android 2.0 releasedâ€Ž, Barry Diller, chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp., says that his company is open to a consolidating transaction in Internet search, and Yahoo pulls the plug on Geocities.

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Windows 7 Release and Shopping Engines

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:25:31 +0000

Learn about the news coming out following the release of the new Windows 7 Operating System. Plus, Jim and Dave speak with Brian Smith from SingleFeed about shopping engines.

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Ask Deals from Ask.com and Yahoo Class Action Settlement

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:24:06 +0000

Ask.com announces its latest offering which is tied-up with its search engine called Ask Deals. Jim and Dave comment on a newly released commercial.

Plus, a Major Mea Culpa Manifested in Yahoo Class Action Settlement, and a SEOMoz post on the Most Linked to Pages on the Internet.

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FTC says Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:09:43 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission announced that it has approved final revisions to the guidance it gives to advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act. Jim and Dave discuss the ruling and how Bloggers Must Give Full Disclosure.

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Internet Statistics Compendium

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:12:37 +0000

Eli Goodman of comScore fills us in on the 217 page Internet Statistics Compendium. Also on the program is Econsultancy Research Director Linus Gregoriadis.

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FCC Backs Net Neutrality

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:05:24 +0000

Jim and Dave discusses FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announcing his full support behind the principles of Net Neutrality, plus tells us about how he got Twitter hacked.

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Skype Lawsuit Complications

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:54:23 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss reports that eBay and Skypes new investors are in violation of copyright law and are seeking damages that could total more than 75 million dollars for each day they operate Skype.

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Search Ads and Banner Ads

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:04:02 +0000

Search Ads and Banner Ads: A Powerful One-Two Punch is the name of a white paper put together by Justin Baker from AdReady. He goes through his comments on banner advertising and search.

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Twitter Under Government Control Speculation

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:56:18 +0000

Jim goes into rant mode over a blog post by Andy Beal on Marketing Pilgrim.com titled speculating Why the US Government Might Take Control of Twitter.

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Google Adwords Third Party Ad Serving

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:05:05 +0000

Jim is joined by Shannon Poole of ConferenceCalendar.com to discuss news that included Google AdWords Requirements for third-party ad serving, the Lochness Monster on Google Maps , and SEOMoz's annual survey of Search Engine Ranking Factors.

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Greenwave Revolution on Twitter

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:14:47 +0000

#iranelection and #gr88 US Twitter organizer Kristine Schachinger discusses how the social networking tool Twitter allowed people to report on events in Iran during the election protests and media blackout earlier this summer.

Under the user name @schachin, Kristine has acted as an organizer, promoter, programmer and catalyst for the Greenwave Revolution on Twitter. She and her team worked 20-hour days keeping information flowing from the streets of Iran.

Our interview covers the technical and emotional challenges of supporting the incredible peoplesâ€™ democratic uprising on the streets of Iran.

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Bing-vertising

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:07:20 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Microsoft Bing and their decision for a viral ad based on a jingle called Bing Goes the Internet by Jonathan Mann.

Plus, we learn what WebmasterRadio.FM has in store for when they arrive at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2009.

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The Benefits of BingYa!-The Microsoft Yahoo Search Deal

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:04:51 +0000

Jim and Dave take a look at the various sectors immediately (or very soon to be) affected by the new-born beast known as BingYa!

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Optimizing for Real Time Search

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:52:07 +0000

A Discussion on a recent SEM Synergy episode on Optimizing for Real Time Search, plus news on Zappos absorbed by Amazon in an all stock transaction. Jim and Dave also discuss Customer Service Heroes and Goats.

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Preparing for the Future of Search

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:33:08 +0000

Jim interviews Charlene Li, Co-Author, Groundswell, Founder, Altimeter Group, and she previews her upcoming SES San Jose 2009 Keynote presentation entitled How to Prepare for the Future of Search.

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Google Chrome Operating System

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:46:57 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the announcement of the new Google Chrome Operating System and how the battle between Google and Microsoft is about to get extremely existential and more interesting than ever.

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Bing Search Engine Profiled

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:30:31 +0000

Bing's Senior Program Manager Lead Nathan Buggia and Principal Group Program Manager Rajesh Srivastava profiles the new search engine.

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Affiliate Convention 2009 Recap

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:11:26 +0000

Jim reflects and recaps on Affiliate Convention 2009 in Denver, including his take on the Black Hat White Hat SEO panel, the keynotes and the need for more Tim Ash Landing Page Optimization talk.

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The Coming Tweet-pocalypse

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:29:43 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the break down of Twitter, SES Toronto, and an article Dave wrote.

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SMX Advanced 2009 Recap

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:16:24 +0000

Dave Davies returns from SMX Advanced 2009 and recaps the tradeshow including the comments that Google Engineer Matt Cutts on no follow and PR Sculpting

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SEMPO Emerging Technologies

Thu, 28 May 2009 23:15:21 +0000

Jim Hedger speaks with members of SEMPO's Emerging Technologies Committee.

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Google Described as Organized Crime

Thu, 21 May 2009 20:29:46 +0000

Google Described as Organized Crime in the recent blog post by Eric Lander entitled "Google: The Internetâ€™s Organized Crime Family".
Jim and Dave analyze the post from their applications to their acquisitions

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Google Service Outage in Washington DC

Thu, 14 May 2009 20:16:44 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss the recent Google Service Outage in Washington DC.

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Affiliate Convention 2009 Preview

Thu, 07 May 2009 19:33:34 +0000

Aunesty Jansen joins us to discuss Affiliate Convention 2009.

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Cyber Security and Conflickr

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:54:10 +0000

Cyber Security in a Time of Conflict and Conflickr with Sean Paul Correll of Panda Security.

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Yahoo Cuts and Twitter Interviewed

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:41:20 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss more job cuts at Yahoo and Jim critiques an interview with Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone

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Link Building Guide

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:52:42 +0000

Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz discusses his Professional's Guide to Link Building.

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MadMen TV Show on Twitter

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:28:30 +0000

The Twitter MadMen supporting characters cast on their work on Twitter, the metaverse and everything.

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Inside IM Spring Break

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:22:44 +0000

Jim and Dave speak to Steve Plunkett and Chris Winfield, who give us an inside look at IM Spring Break.

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SEO Training at SES New York 2009

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:29:21 +0000

SEO Training at SES New York 2009 with the Bruce Clay team

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eCommerce and Shopping Cart Marketing

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:37:04 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Robert Muise from 3dcart.com about serving the ecommerce market.

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Excelling in Microsoft Excel + Merchant Metrix Shopping Cart

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:51:32 +0000

Senior Product Manager for Webmaster & SEO tools for Microsoft Live Search, Ani Babaian discusses her book, IT Girl's Guide to becoming an Excel Diva. Later in the show, Jim speaks with Lee Roberts, CEO and founder of the search engine friendly shopping cart, Merchant Metrix.

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User Driven Change

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:11:32 +0000

Carlos Del Rio aka Inflatemouse discusses user driven change

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New WebmasterRadio.FM Website

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:32:12 +0000

The new WebmasterRadio.FM Website is launched

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Facebook Terms and Conditions Protest

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:46:01 +0000

Facebook Terms and Conditions Protest with Julius Harper, founder of the protest group Facebook Owns You

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Angry eBay Affiliates and SMX Review

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:45:01 +0000

eBay throws down the hammer and it's affecting several small businesses.

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Google Forces Time Warners Hand

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:43:57 +0000

Google Forces Time Warners Hand, Bill Gates lets loose mosquitoes on tech conference bloodsuckers and guest, Landing Page Optimization expert Tim Ash

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Yelp Complaint Lawsuit + Cut&Paste Digital Design Contest

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:42:21 +0000

Attorney Michael Blacksburg, who represented Christopher Nordberg in a Yelp Complaint Lawsuit

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eBay Power Sellers Confidence

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:41:22 +0000

Power Seller David Stotts discusses issues surrounding eBay

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Usability SEO

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:40:15 +0000

Usability SEO Queen Kim Krause Berg, of the Cre8asite forums

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Venture Capitalists and Gourmet Pet Food

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:39:30 +0000

Pet Deli owner Murray Galbraith tells us about being on the CBC TV Program Dragons Den pitching to venture capitalists his gourmet pet food and how he used experience to create a website to campaign for votes,

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Cyber Monday with SEMPO and their appearance at the NASDAQ Opening Bell, plus a

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:40:36 +0000

Rank Mobile founder Cindy Krum guests hosts with Jim as they preview SES Chicago 2008, plus SEMPO and their appearance at the NASDAQ Opening Bell on December 1st as part of Cyber Monday

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Search & Internet Marketing Survey Results with Laura Callow of SEMCanada , plus

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:41:47 +0000

Laura Callow of SEMCanada tells us about her 10-part survey of the search and Internet marketing industry, plus Jim speaks with Facebook Director of Monetization Tim Kendall speaks on how Facebook would like to get more involved with the industry.

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Keyword Research & How the Top 3% of Search Advertisers Dominate Google AdWords

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:42:49 +0000

Richard Stokes from AdGooRoo discusses Keyword Research, plus PPC Rockstars host David Szetela shares the success of his podcast and what kind of marketing strategies have contributed best to the radio show.

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Google Paid Click Quality

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:43:54 +0000

Shuman Ghosemajumder discusses Google Paid Click Quality, plus some of the smart techniques and general mistakes used & made by webmasters, plus how Googles new Alpha fighter jet could help with the splogger problems facing legitimate bloggers

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Jim Hedger Joins WebmasterRadio.FM

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:45:01 +0000

Jim Hedger announces that he is joining the staff of WebmasterRadio.FM, plus discussion on a blog post by Danny Sullivan on how he is a real American now matter what John McCain says, plus a Michael Gray Blog post on No Follow & PageRank Sculpting

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Scary SEO preview with organizer Dave Snyder

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:45:58 +0000

More additions at WeBuildPages, Yahoo news, Big Watah, and a ScarySEO preview with organizer Dave Snyder who fills us in on sessions, after hour functions, charity events and how the miniconference is being used to showcase South Florida SEOs.

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SMX East 2008 Recap

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:47:03 +0000

Recap of SMX East 2008, with news on the Linkscape tool launch by SEOMoz, plus news on several SEOs joining new companies plus afterthoughts following the after hour functions like the IM charity party and Searchbash

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Tech World Effect from Federal Bailout

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:48:07 +0000

Eric J. Savitz, west coast editor for Barrons.com joins Jim and Dave to examine the federal bailout package and how current economic conditions effect the tech world. Eric has covered the business end of tech for over a decade.

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Dynamic URLs vs Static URLs Opinion

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 18:49:03 +0000

Patrick Sexton of WeBuildPages and Michael Gray aka graywolf discuss the latest Google updates including the ongoing dynamic vs static urls post on the Google Webmaster Central blog, plus their plans for SMX East

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The Web in a Struggling Economy

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:50:02 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how the economy is affecting the internet, plus Aaron Faulkerson, tells us about a free open source wiki and application platform MindTouch Deki, and how his companys products and services can help online business efficiency.

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In House SEO and SEM

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:51:02 +0000

In House SEO and SEM Training experts Jessica Bowman and Kristine Scachinger discuss their work offering In House SEO and SEM training sessions, plus we hear issues they come across such as evangelizing, plus dealing with agencies, IT and marketing.

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Google Chrome & Future of Mobile Search

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:52:00 +0000

Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works, discusses her thoughts about Google Chrome & the Future of Mobile Search, including her comments at the SES San Jose 2008 panel Death of dotMobi

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A More Neutral Net

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:53:03 +0000

Talking about A More Neutral Net with Timothy Carr from FreePress and SaveTheInternet.com discusses the Pro Net Neutrality side of the debate, plus a post Search Engine Strategies San Jose wrap up

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Talking Online Video

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:55:08 +0000

Talking Online Video as Jim Flynn tells us about EZTakes, including its viewers, scalability issues, Revenue models, advertising, resale opportunities for webmasters and how it benefits ad producers and buyers.

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Google Yahoo Ad Deal Inside Story

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:56:16 +0000

Chris O'Brien of the San Jose Mercury News gives us the inside story on Yahoo situation , and the current Google/ Yahoo ad deal, and Cindy Krum of Blue Moon Works reports from SMX Local and Mobile.

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Sphinn Sphamm

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:57:17 +0000

Edward Lewis of SEO Consultants discusses Sphinn Sphamm, because of the current pace of Sphinn, he thinks they are doing more harm to themselves, their community members aka the real Sphinners and social networking

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Quality Score Factors

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:58:24 +0000

Clix Marketing head David Szediscusses Quality Score Factors as Google AdWords issues with Advertisers over Landing Page Quality Factors and Search Engine Strategies VP & Global Content Director Kevin Ryan previews SES San Jose 2008

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Preserving Net Neutrality

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:59:56 +0000

Discussing the Pros and Cons Cons of Net Neutrality with Craig Aaron from The SavetheInternet.com Coalition which urges Congress to preserve Network Neutrality, the First Amendment of the Internet.

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Net Neutrality Debate

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:00:59 +0000

Christopher Wolf , who chairs the Internet law practice group at Proskauer Rose LLP & co chairs the public policy advocacy group Hands Off the Internet gives his take on the Net Neutrality Debate, plus Jim & Dave interview Marty Weintraub

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State of Search Marketing in Canada

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:01:54 +0000

Talking about the State of Search Marketing in Canada as Jim Hedger recaps SES Toronto 2008 where the show is dying down, plus the issues Epiar is facing scheduling SEM Canada and Jim tells us about his meeting with the superiors of Incisive Media

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Internet Bullying victims & Former Wikipedia admins Lise Broer:AKA Durova & Davi

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:03:10 +0000

Former Wikipedia admins Lise Broer:AKA Durova & David Shankbone about why they were let go due to claims of harrassment, plus David discusses his Brooklyn Rail post called Nobodys Safe in Cyberspace talking about dealing with an internet stalker.

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Aftermath of Ask Layoffs

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:09:23 +0000

Talking Googlebot and the Invisible Web with former Ask.com executive and currently Resource Shelf chief librarian Gary Price who talks about the aftermath of the Ask.com layoffs and the changes that have been made since his departure

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Google Product Failures

Thu, 22 May 2008 20:10:37 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss a PC World article on the Top 10 Google Product Failures, the return of SEO Rockstars to WebmasterRadio.FM, plus the launch of the Microsoft Live Search Cashback program

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Yahoo & Microsoft Talks Might Reignite

Thu, 15 May 2008 20:11:32 +0000

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn makes a proxy move to oust the Yahoo board in an effort to reignite takeover talks with Microsoft, .plus Jim and Dave speak to several winners of the Google Anita Borg Scholarship Fund

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Reputation Management Importance

Sat, 10 May 2008 20:13:12 +0000

Following a recent crisis following a fire that destroyed the Metamend offices, Murray Owen and David Howell discuss how their company initiated their reputation management and we discover its importance and how it has becone a necessity in SEO.

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Monetizing Paid Search

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:12:23 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss how the major search engines are catering to their clients doing paid search, and how Yahoo, Microsoft and Google work with clients to monetize in quality score ad score, keywords and page rank

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The SEO Trademark is hitting its filing deadline – SEOMoz general counsel Sarah

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:14:40 +0000

SEOMoz general counsel Sarah Bird discusses the SEO Trademark issue,on the last of filing complaints with the US Patent and Trademark Office, plus Ryah Shertobitoff of Panda Software talks about netbots and internet security

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Sustaining Search Rankings and Increasing Site Conversions

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:16:34 +0000

Sustaining Search Rankings and Increasing Site Conversions is the final part of the ten part series on SEO featured on WebProNews, plus Post SEO where SEO and SEM Become Website Marketing

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Conversion Optimization

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:17:38 +0000

Enquiros Rick Tobin and Gord Hotchkiss disucss conversion optimization including Barrier Scanning in Websites, pushing scan patterns and clearing navigation paths.

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Statistics Analysis

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:18:41 +0000

Andres Galdames of ClickTracks discusses statistics analysis including Improving Your Site Health in order to improve your site ranking, plus the importance of rank to a companys bottom line.

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PPC Campaigns

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:19:36 +0000

PPC is the next topic in this ten-part SEO series as Jim and Dave speak to Emily Spence of Enquisite about keyword research, setting up your PPC campaign and setting it up in conjunction with an organic campaign

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Canadian City uses Google Earth – Jim Hedger is interviewed by CBC

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:20:49 +0000

Jim is interviewed by CBC for a story on a Canadian city using Google Earth for city services plus he reflects back on SES New York and gives his thoughts on the parties held by Microsoft, WebmasterRadio and BestOfTheWeb

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Implementing social media strategies

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:22:04 +0000

Part six of the ongoing ten part series on SEO on social media, and Li Evans from KeyRelevance tells us about implementing social media strategies and the AOL Acquisition of Bebo.

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Link Building

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:23:32 +0000

Jim and Dave speak with Debra Mastaler who wrote a Semmy winning article on link building, where she offer tip and resources to those who need help gaining more traffic.

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SEO Moz Launches Popular Tools

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:24:33 +0000

SEOMoz campaign coordinator Scott Willoughby fills us in on their Popular Tools launch announcement made at SMX West, plus Jeff Quipp from SearchEnginePeople discuss his blog post on establishing authority

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Content Optimization

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:25:29 +0000

Content optimization, and how it is a commitment to developing and deploying great pages, document and site content for SEOs, with Jade Carter and Alex Hlinski of Metamend

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Site Structure

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:26:48 +0000

Daryl Quenet of Beanstalk discusses site structure including Valid Markup and Cascading Style Sheets, Website Templating, Search Engine Friendly URLs, Dynamic Websites and Duplicate Content and Internal Site Navigation

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Competitive Analysis

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:27:50 +0000

Ross Dunn from Stepforth describes competitive analysis and how deconstructing online marketing strategy help SEOs discover how well their competitors are doing, plus Andres Galdames of ClickTracks tells us about self analysis

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Keyword Research

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:28:52 +0000

Ken McGaffin from WordTracker, Richard Stokes from AdGooroo.com and Curtis Dueck from Epiar discuss keyword research in the first part of a ten part series on SEO

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SEO Meetups

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:29:45 +0000

White label SEO John Carcutt from Applied SEO explains how he is providing opportunites for SEO services and even setting up meetings for those who need help and who want to learn SEO

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Web Analytics in 2008

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:30:50 +0000

Technical Services Manager at Metamend Jade Carter, discusses his role with Metamend, plus what his take is on the potential increased use of web analytics in 2008.

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PageZero SEM – SEO Services

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:31:58 +0000

Andrew Goodman discusses in an exclusive interivew the PageZero announcement on the inclusion of SEO services to what is a highly lucrative PPC business.

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Search Engine Marketing in the New Year

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:35:19 +0000

Abe Mezrich of DidIt Search speaks about the companys plans for an in house university called DidItU and gives his take on the future of Yahoo and search marketing in general for the new year.

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SES Chicago 2007 Review

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:37:07 +0000

Trellian director of business development Becky Ryan , WebMama CEO Barbara Coll, and PopLabs founder Gene McCubbin are among the guests giving their reviews and commentary on the final day of SES Chicago 2007

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Social Media and Flock

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:38:00 +0000

Social Media is up for discussion with Rebecca Kelley from SEOMoz and Clayton Stark who is the founder of Flock, a social media browser that interacts with popular social networking web services.such as Flickr, Facebook, Del.icio.us, & Technorati

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Ken Jurina and Damien Findlay from Epiar

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:39:04 +0000

Jim and Dave speak about the European Union Lengthening their probe Into Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, plus interviews with Ken Jurina and Damien Findlay from internet market research and search engine optimization company Epiar

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How Facebook and social networking ads are made and marketed Gerardo Capiel of G

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:40:16 +0000

Facebook and social networking ads and how they are made and marketed Gerardo Capiel, Founder and CEO of Gydget, whose company specializes in Its core product, gydget, a stand-alone, viral web application or widget that can be created by anyone

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Google value of links

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:41:14 +0000

Jim and Dave discuss Facebook and Google in a showdown, an ad:Tech Preview and an interview with search engine patent guru Bill Slawski from Key Relevance to talk about Google and how they look at the value of links

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Ecosystem of the Internet (Debut Episode)

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:42:21 +0000

Take a deeper look at the ecosystem of the Internet as it affects webmasters and web marketers from their points of view of web marketers Jim Hedger and Dave Davies on the series premiere of Webcology.

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