Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and User Experience (UX) are not at odds with each other. Done correctly, SEO and UX should be complimentary. Here’s why SEO and UX are like chocolate and peanut butter. Intent SEO is, when you get down to it, about meeting query intent. This goes well beyond the traditional breakdown between […]
The recent algorithm change by Google, dubbed by Danny Sullivan as the Farmer Update, was “designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites …” The emphasis is mine. I think that emphasis is important because the Farmer Update was not a content level algorithm change. Google did not suddenly get better at analyzing the actual quality […]
Yesterday Google rolled out an algorithm change “designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.” Google’s share of the search market must have been suffering, right? Wrong. comScore puts Google at 63.0% in January 2009, 65.4% in […]
Is the SEO community really surprised by the link revelations that have been in the news recently? Anyone who is surprised clearly hasn’t done much (if any) link research lately. Because link abuse is rampant. For example, using Open Site Explorer I reviewed backlinks to a specific page for a top 500 trafficked site. Lo […]
What would Google look like if it relied exclusively on the nofollow link graph? It would be a sort of Bizzaro Google. We’ll call it Elgoog. In this search engine Matt Cutts would help ensure every SERP contained at least one result for Viagra. Sounds like the stuff of comic books. Yet, I think the […]
Stop writing for people. Start writing for search engines. I’ll wait while you run to get your pitchforks and light your torches. I know it sounds like heresy but I ask you to hold your judgment. Search Engines Emulate Human Evaluation The goal of search engine algorithms is to emulate the human evaluation of a […]
It’s a new year and like millions of others I’ve taken stock and made some resolutions. The Dark Passenger Perhaps it was in this state of mind that I caught myself turning Quora into a competition. It’s not (or shouldn’t be) and my initial motivations for answering were more altruistic than self-serving. But like some […]
Infographics can be a great way to generate backlinks. But the prevalence of infographic spam threatens this link building technique. Infographic Spam You’ve undoubtedly seen infographic spam. The hallmarks of infographic spam are a mediocre graphic from multiple data sources with a link back to a tenuously related website. This TSA infographic is linked to […]
I recently warned you not to ignore the pay-per-click opportunities on Facebook. Yet, the bigger long-term opportunity is Facebook SEO. This has absolutely nothing to do with Facebook Pages. Take a peek into the future and the quickly evolving world of Facebook search. Facebook SEO In the past, Facebook was about optimizing a ‘fan’ page […]
Google has a Heisenberg problem. In fact, all search engine algorithms likely have this problem. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle What is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? The scientific version goes something like this. The act of measuring one magnitude of a particle, be it its mass, its velocity, or its position, causes the other magnitudes to […]
