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Some websites are so poorly designed that they constitute serious security risks to visitors. There are a multitude of different attacks that hackers can use to exploit such websites. Cross scripting, for example, is a tactic that has been used over and over again to download malicious code onto people’s computers without them knowing it. Download links might be redirected to something that installs a virus on a user’s computer in some cases and, in other cases, however malicious they may be, the attack strategies used by hackers are really quite clever. It’s important to know when you’re out of your league.

Why Professionals Matter

Preventing your website from becoming a security risk requires skill and knowledge. Unless you do have professional web development skills, it’s unlikely that you have the requisite tools to find security holes. In the same way that an accountant can recognize signs that indicate somebody is embezzling, a skilled web developer can recognize signs that a website might have security holes in it or that it is actively posing a security threat. By utilizing the skills of a professional developer, you can oftentimes remedy existing security problems and prevent new ones for manifesting.

Validating Code

One of the very understandable and common ways that developers will check a site to see if it has been programmed correctly is doing what’s called validating code. This checks the website code to make sure that it conforms to current development standards. If it does not, it may not only pose a security threat but it may also reduce your chances of being indexed by the search engines for the keywords that apply to your content.

Developers can go much deeper than this. For example, developers are generally aware of common security exploits and will check the website to make certain that they aren’t vulnerable to such exploits. A skilled hacker could insert a frame into your website that’s too small for you to see, for example, but a developer would recognize the code when they see it.

Limiting Access

One of the concepts that go into designing a website from a security standpoint is the concept of giving every user the least possible access to do what they need to do. For example, nobody but the actual administrator of the website should ever have administrative privileges for a website. Programmers set up privileges on websites and good programmers can make sure they’re set up right.

Links

One of the biggest security holes that people unknowingly create on their own website comes from not being discerning enough about the links that they put on their site. This can happen in many ways. Perhaps you have a blog section where you don’t moderate comments and people put up malicious links on the comments section. Perhaps you start randomly adding links as a search engine optimization strategy and don’t take into consideration that you may be referring visitors to sites that are downright dangerous.

Having a professional take a look at your site will generally reveal if you’ve made any of these common mistakes. Correcting them can meaningfully increase the overall security of your website.

Your Hosting

Talk to your website developer about what type of hosting is best for your intended usage. In some cases, you may be able to get away with having a virtual hosting account but, in others, it may be better for your site if you have your own dedicated server. Your developer will be able to explain to you the benefits of the different server packages available and which has the appropriate level of security for your site.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/improved-attacks-improved-defenses-defeating-security-issues-with-good-development/

Geek celebrity Wil Wheaton is what you might call a Google+ power user. He’s actively engaged on Google’s social network, and has amassed 1,373,118 followers to date. That’s a lot for Google+. Google, however, keeps doing things with Google+ that are pissing Wheaton off, and if they’re pissing Wheaton off, there’s a good chance they’re pissing off other users.

The sources of frustration have mainly stemmed from Google forcing Google+ down people’s throats (as some see it), and blasting out features with usability issues. The shift to Google+ for local search has certainly irritated some users as well, even if Google’s grand plan may warrant such changes. Are you happy with the way Google has pushed Google+ thus far? Let us know in the comments.

Last month, Wheaton fumed about a feature Google was testing on YouTube, which placed a Google+ like button in the spot where the YouTube thumbs up button would normally be. It would prompt users to upgrade to Google+ when not signed in. Wheaton was worried about losing YouTube upvotes, though Google told a us a very small number of users were actually seeing this test feature, which may never see the light of day.

We had a lengthy conversation with Wheaton about whether Google is forcing Google+ down people’s throats. Read our whole interview with him here.

So why is Wheaton upset this time? It has to do with Google’s rollout of Events on Google+. At Google I/O, Google announced the feature, and it soon went live. Here’s Google’s promo video about it:

The rollout, however, apparently did not go exactly as planned. Here’s what Wheaton had to say on Google+:

Wil Wheaton1 day ago

Did G+ roll out some new “invite everyone you follow to an event” thing? My feed is completely overwhelmed with “everyone’s invited to XXXXX event” notices, and I’m having a hard time actually seeing posts from people I’m following.

Oh, and the spammer scumbags have figured out that they can make an invite to an event that’s nothing but spam.

Is there a way to opt-out of event invites from people I don’t follow or have circled? Is this yet another thing Google rolled out without thinking it through clearly?
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Some of the events Wheaton was getting invite spam for included things like: “Something in Columbia, Not Giving a Fuck Friday,” and “The Guild Wars 2 Release Date”.

Wheaton followed that up with a post on his blog, where he added, “I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s like Google has learned nothing from Buzz…and is actually doing this sort of thing on purpose.”

In case you don’t get the Buzz reference, Google pissed a lot of other people off when it first launched the now defunct Google Buzz in people’s Gmail inboxes, due to some privacy issues that resulted in lawsuits.

Wheaton posted a follow up post on Google+, where he talked about the new Events feature more. “It’s too bad that I’ll never use it, and will kill it with fire, because Google has, yet again, made a product that may be useful and cool, but forced it upon users without giving users any control over how invasive it is.”

He later added, “As a result, G+ is useless to me today, and for as long as it takes the company to actually fix this, assuming they ever do. Yeah, it’s a first world problem for me, but it’s also a problem for Google, because even if 1% of G+ users feel the same way I do, that’s a lot of people Google has unnecessarily pissed of and possibly alienated.”

Finally, Wheaton updated his blog post, saying:

It appears that Google engineers are actively working on a way to fix this thing, and that it may not have been intentional. I sincerely hope that that’s the case, and will just point out that, if Google didn’t have a pattern of social network behaviour to the contrary, I’d be way more willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt.

And it isn’t lost on me that my G+ experience is likely quite different from most people’s, I get that. If my opinion on this is somehow distressing to you because your experience is different, and you feel a need to be really shitty to me about it, I suggest you save us both the headache and keep it to yourself. Nobody is forcing you to listen to me.

In yet another Google+ post, Wheaton provides a response from Google’s Vic Gundotra:

+Vic Gundotra says “We are doing exactly what you requested. We should have contemplated and anticipated how people would abuse this and how painful this could be for celebrities with large followings.

We have pushed a number of fixes yesterday (some were bug fixes that showed up at scale). Expect more fixes today. Sorry for the trouble Will.”

Google+ Events could ultimately be a very important feature for Google+. After all, this is a feature Facebook has offered for a long time, and this means one less thing that Facebook can do that Google+ can’t. Google also has the benefits of Android, Google Calendar and Gmail and all of their users, to make this a very integrated, and usable tool. At Google I/O, Google announced that 400 million Android devices have been activated, with 12 new ones activated every second of every day. Google also announced that Gmail has 425 million unique users a month.

It’s going to be interesting to see if the feature turns out to be a big part of the user’s everyday Google experience. My guess is that it will play into Google’s future search plans. Google also announced Google Now at Google I/O. This appears to be Google’s way of decreasing your dependence on search, while still keeping you within the Google universe, by pushing information to you before you need to search.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-pisses-off-google-power-user-wil-wheaton-again-2012-06

These days, brick and mortar businesses displaying some kind of signage saying “Like us on Facebook,” are nearly as common as those displaying Visa and MasterCard logos. That’s worth considering, when you think about using Faceabook as a way to pay for goods and services in the physical world.

Google has been working with the HandsOn Network to help U.S. nonprofits partner up with tech savvy individuals who are interested in supporting a cause.

HandsOn Tech is an initiative focused on helping nonprofit groups make a difference. Working with members of AmeriCorps VISTA, Google and the HandsOn Network will be placing twenty-eight workers in eight cities across the United States in order to help technology serve charitable organizations better.

Google comments on their work with nonprofits on their blog site:

Last year, we funded 24 full-time AmeriCorps VISTA positions. These VISTA members provided technology training to more than 1,300 small, poverty-focused nonprofits nationwide. Further, these VISTA participants engaged skilled volunteers, including lots of Googlers, to assist nearly 200 nonprofits in creating individualized, comprehensive tech plans that will help them to work more efficiently.

The program has been so successful that we’re expanding—it will now include one additional city and 28 new VISTA positions, with the goal of reaching even more nonprofits. The new HandsOnTech VISTAs will start in August with a one week training at our campus in Mountain View, Calif., where they’ll learn about cloud-based tools from a variety of technology companies including the Google For Nonprofits suite that allows many nonprofits to use free online advertising, Google Apps and YouTube channels. Once they are armed with tech know-how they’ll spend the rest of the year in two and three-person teams serving nonprofits in the Bay Area, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Last Year the projects Included the following:

* Migrating Dreams for Kids, a Chicago nonprofit empowering at-risk and disabled youth, to Google Apps—enabling them to more efficiently and effectively collaborate without the restriction of limited office space.

* Building a dynamic website and social media strategy for Doing Art Together, a NYC-based nonprofit providing hands-on programming and GED prep for under-resourced youth.

* Using Google Maps and Fusion Tables to help Atlanta’s The Drake House create a map that helps staff better visualize the local homeless population in order to more effectively distribute their services.

Google and HandsOn Tech are presently working on getting volunteers and coordinating the projects, they will actually be accepting applications until the 27th of June. We’ll keep you up to date on any new information coming out of the partnership. It’s a great way to give back to the community and get technology into the hands of organization who wouldn’t normally be able to afford it.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-fueling-nonprofits-with-free-technology-2012-06

Negative SEO is on the minds of many search engine optimizers these days. However, SEO’s mostly talk about it within the context of Penguin update and Google’s war on spam, because there is barely enough data to discuss it as a separate subject. Well, I believe it’s still important to make an in-depth analysis of the current state of negative SEO, since many folks would like to know at this point – should they be concerned?

What made negative SEO worries arise?

Let’s take a step back and see what lead to the new wave of negative SEO concerns. Thing is, negative SEO had been discussed and dreaded many times in the past, but Google repeatedly managed to keep SEO’s assured that the former can never be effective to the extent that it should be feared.

This time, here is how the situation unfolded:

• March 16, 2012 – Matt Cutts hints to the upcoming “over-optimization” penalty they are working on. This leads to mild negative SEO concerns among optimizers who begin to wonder whether one can artificially make a competitor’s site look “over-
  optimized”.

• March 26, 2012 – Google cracks down on blog networks. Many SEO’s see their rankings nosedive as the result of some of their backlinks becoming devalued.

• April 2, 2012 – Google sends tons of “unnatural links” notifications to webmasters. According to Google, they have simply
  become more vocal about what links they distrust. However, some webmasters claim their sites were down-ranked despite them practicing only white-hat SEO, and debate the probability of negative SEO.

• April 24, 2012 – Google’s Penguin update hits. Many SEO’s shout foul and say they were unjustly affected by the update, which leads to more negative SEO concerns. Links’ anchor texts become a widely discussed issue.

• April 27, 2012 – Panda 3.6 is released. Minor SERPs changes are observed.

• May 26, 2012 – Penguin 1.1 is released. Some websites that had been hit by Penguin 1.0 go up, while some new websites nosedive within the search results.

As you see:

– Quite a few important changes to Google’s ranking algorithm were introduced over a relatively short period of time;

– Most of these changes have to do with backlinks and anchor texts – something webmasters do not always control;

–Stating the exact reason for each individual rankings drop is impossible in most cases (while there could be many/different factors at play).

Hence, all this gave rise to concerns and different speculations about negative SEO.

Is there substantial proof that negative SEO works?

In the light of reemerging worries, two notable incidents related to negative SEO took place. One is SEOMozchallenging the industry to take down their website. And the other one is Dan Thies’ website getting hit by spam links after Dan tweeted his support of Matt Cutts’ crackdown on blog networks.

The conclusion that can be drawn from SEOMoz’s case is that, if your site is old and reputable enough, it’s pretty much immune to negative SEO. While in the case of Dan Thies it’s very hard to tell whether the rankings changes were caused by spam links or not, since this coincided with the time of “the site move” as stated by Dan himself. He did receive the unnatural backlinks notification, though.

That said, a solid and a well-documented negative SEO study is yet to be conducted.

Is Google finally taking notice?

Of course, all this negative SEO talk could not go unnoticed by Google. As Matt Cutts said at SMX Advanced just recently (emphasis mine):

“Some have suggested that Google could disavow links. Even though we put in a lot of protection against negative SEO, there’s been so much talk about that that we’re talking about being able to enable that, maybe in a month or two or three”.

So, Google is thinking about enabling the disavowing of links. This means that soon we might see a mechanism that will let webmasters dissociate their site from particular backlinks.

Incentives and challenges for Google

No doubt, Google would like to penalize each and every trespasser of their Webmaster guidelines out there. However, in doing so, they don’t want to compromise the quality of their search results, and this is exactly what would happen if negative SEO were easily doable.

The presumption that negative SEO is now possible is based on the opinion (which, to the best of my knowledge, Google never confirmed) that, with Penguin update, Google began penalizing websites for suspicious links rather than simply discounting those links (by “penalizing” I mean ranking lower algorithmically, which is the opposite of a manual penalty).

However, if we listen to what Google did say and confirm, we’ll see that the only statement he made was that Google has now become better at identifying blog networks and deindexing them (not to confuse with deindexing the sites they link to) as well as catching paid links.

My opinion is that Google cannot afford to penalize all sites for suspicious backlinks just yet, as it doesn’t have an effective mechanism of identifying voluntarily acquired links and links that have been “donated” to the site by ill-wishing competitors.

I also think, when/if Google introduces such mechanism, it will most likely begin using suspicious
backlinks as a much stronger negative signal in their ranking algorithm.

What can one do to avoid negative SEO done to them?

Now, what makes a website immune to negative SEO? First of all, the more positive signals Google can find about your site, the harder it would be for someone to influence your rankings in a bad way.

Hence:

1. Attract quality backlinks (write about the industry’s news, post helpful posts, do something extraordinary on your site, connect with the industry folks by commenting on their blogs and taking part in forum discussions, get featured on important resources, etc.)

2. Take good care of on-page optimization (this includes using the number of keywords in your site’s copy that would be natural to use, fixing crawlability issues, preventing canonicalization confusion and removing duplicate content).

3. Get as much social media love as you can (social media signals have only become more important in recent years, not to mention that they also serve as great traffic channels).

Sounds like a traditional SEO plan? It is! The more SEO fronts you have covered, the harder it will to take your site down.

Another good habit you could develop is to continuously monitor your site rankings and backlinks. This would allow you to detect negative SEO done to your site early on and react accordingly.

What happens next?

Many people wonder what will eventually happen, that is, whether or not there will be more negative SEO instances, and whether or not Google will offer an effective solution to that. Here is what I think about it:

– It takes more resources to do negative SEO than to do positive SEO, because in the case of the former you invest in “SEOing” several sites, while in the case of the latter you have only one website to take care of. So, many people may not afford to do negative SEO in the first place.

– Negative SEO pays off only temporarily. If someone gets hit by a bunch of spam links and reports that to Google, eventually, the site would come back to where it was before.

– I strongly believe that, even if there will become more space for negative SEO as the result of Google’s future updates (which, I think, will be the opposite), Google will have no choice but to come up with a solution to that and might eventually introduce a disavow-your-links option.

Until then, let us not panic and continue doing the awesome SEO job we’ve been doing so far.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/everyones-talking-negative-seo-should-you-be-concerned/

YouTube is already become one of the most popular websites on the internet and people admit that they spend hours on the video sharing site that has millions of views on a daily basis. The site continues to grow and people are now able to use YouTube marketing tips that work for their own benefit. A lot of businesses are now able to use YouTube as their platform to reach out and find more potential customers. However, there are several tips that you can use to help you garner the right people to see your YouTube videos.
Know Your Keywords

You most likely have a great video but no one will ever find it if you have horrible keywords. This means that you will need to do research and use keywords that would be smart to optimize for. You will just use these keywords and then create a title with the keyword in front. Simply put this keyword in the description box and also in the tags section so that you will be able to optimize for that keyword. Once people start to search for that keyword, they will then find your video and allow you to get more views.
Content Is Crucial

Though some people will be able to find your videos, it does not necessarily mean that they will watch it or like it. You will need to make sure that the content of the video is good enough to really have people want to share it to others. This is certainly something that you must think about while you are creating the video and you need to understand just how hard it is to grab a person’s attention. Focus on making the first 15 seconds very intriguing and then making the rest of the video just as good.
You Need To Have Fun

The last step is to simply not take it too seriously. A lot of online marketers will take the process of making videos too seriously and it will show on the videos. This means that there are plenty of online videos that are just taken too seriously and it just creates bad videos that are just not great. The problem that a lot of YouTube marketers will encounter is the fact that they work very hard on a video and then realize that no one is watching.

If you are serious about being able to see your YouTube video getting attention on the internet, then you must know how to market your videos with these simple tips. The process of making a good video, sharing it, and then marketing the video to the right people, can take a while but it will be very helpful for your online business. The majority of small businesses owner know that YouTube videos can be very helpful and expand their online presence. Though this will definitely require a lot of effort on your part, it will be very worth it when you start to see your business getting more attention.

Post written and researched by Alex Duke from HighwaySEO. An SEO Company based in Atlanta offer range of Search Engine Optimisation & Web Design services to clients throughout the US.

It’s that time again…Google’s monthly list is out, and compared to last month, it is much tamer.

There are some notable topics worth mentioning, though. And you may want to listen up if your site was affected by the recent Penguin update.
Backlinks

Google made changes to its backlinking spam signals.

Better application of inorganic backlinks signals. [launch codename “improv-fix”, project codename “Page Quality”] We have algorithms in place designed to detect a variety of link schemes, a common spam technique. This change ensures we’re using those signals appropriately in the rest of our ranking.

What are link schemes? Take a look at Google’s definition:

If you feel you were downgraded due to “shoddy” links, remove them as soon as possible and you may see improvement.

Pay CLOSE attention to this statement: “The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity.”

Consider every site that links to yours as an extension of your website. If the sites are unfavorable, it will reflect poorly on your website. Google looks to the sites that link to you to receive information about your site.
Penguin Updates

Google made more changes to Penguin, adding that minor tweaks improved the signals.

Improvements to Penguin. [launch codename “twref2”, project codename “Page Quality”] This month we rolled out a couple minor tweaks to improve signals and refresh the data used by the penguin algorithm.

This update (a.k.a. Penguin 1.1) most likely occurred around May 25 as reported by Matt Cutts on Twitter, although he referenced more of a refresh rather than an update. Cutts also mentioned Penguin tweaks at the SMX Advanced conference.

Penguin will continue to target webspam in many forms, especially as it relates to linking. Make sure your site is not involved in any of the following activities so you are prepared for future updates:

Blog networks – Once Build My Rank went down in flames, people started taking notice that Google was serious about penalizing sites publishing content solely for links. While Google cannot enter your head and decide whether your content was created for links, it can examine the site containing your link to make its decision.

Here are some criteria to determine if the sites linking to you are a problem:

Does the site contain content spanning many topics? If the site includes article topics discussing everything from fashion trends to Pennsylvania lemon laws, consider it a spammy site.
Does the site contain content with many exact match keyword links?
Does the content lack value and readability?
Are ads pervading the page and outshining the content?
Does the site have any malware or spam programs?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, your links are suspect. Furthermore, if you used blog commenting in the past with exact match keywords, Penguin may come and get you if you are not careful.

Relevancy and quality are important factors in determining whether a link is spammy. The site should have a specific purpose, be free of excessive ads, and include relevant content that is not present solely for linking purposes.
Title Changes

Google has taken the liberty to shorten your web page titles as it sees fit. The new updates improve this feature:

Trigger alt title when HTML title is truncated. [launch codename “tomwaits”, project codename “Snippets”] We have algorithms designed to present the best possible result titles. This change will show a more succinct title for results where the current title is so long that it gets truncated. We’ll only do this when the new, shorter title is just as accurate as the old one.

Efficiency improvements in alternative title generation. [launch codename “TopOfTheRock”, project codename “Snippets”] With this change we’ve improved the efficiency of title generation systems, leading to significant savings in cpu usage and a more focused set of titles actually shown in search results.

Better demotion of boilerplate anchors in alternate title generation. [launch codename “otisredding”, project codename “Snippets”] When presenting titles in search results, we want to avoid boilerplate copy that doesn’t describe the page accurately, such as “Go Back.”

If you don’t want Google messing with your titles, keep them short and to the point.

Some other May updates…
Freshness got a boost with improved detection methods to identify searchers expecting fresh content.
Improved news results ranking
Better identification of the Google+ pages displayed in the right-hand panel.
Enhancements made to Google’s detection of hacked pages. The search engine will now dig deeper into a website to detect hacking incidents.

That about sums up the important Google changes for May.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them below. Until next month…

Are you a fan of the hit ABC shows Bachelor, Bachelorette, or Bachelor Pad? If so, you’re more than likely aware of Steve Carbone, AKA Reality Steve, the popular blogger who provides exclusive details and spoilers about the shows and their contestants.

Despite his fame among his fans, the production companies behind these shows do not share the same feelings. In December, NZK Productions filed a lawsuit against Carbone claiming that he had exchanged money for information from contestants of last season’s Bachelor. After a 7 month legal battle, both sides were able to reach a settlement this month.

“I think my readers know, I think the contestants of this show, and I certainly know, that what I do brings attention to their show,” recalled Carbone when we spoke with him recently, “so I don’t know why they would go after the guy who has spoiled their seasons for the last 3 years.”

The root of the lawsuit was that Carbone was offering money to contestants in exchange for information. Although he denied this claim from the beginning, Carbone did admit that he offered 3 contestants money for information but said he was rejected.

“They came after me thinking that that’s how I get my information – that I’m telling these people to breach their contracts, which wasn’t the case,” he said.

As he explained, since the middle of the season was a little dry, he was hoping to add to it. Other publications such as US Weekly pay to get their exclusive stories, and since RealitySteve.com was profitable, he decided to make an attempt at it.

“I shouldn’t have offered anybody money for information,” said Carbone. “I learned my lesson – shouldn’t have done it.”

Carbone told us that, since he knew what he did wasn’t legally wrong, he felt he could have won. However, his mounting legal bills led him to settle.

“The bottom line was it was gonna cost way to much money in the end,” he said. “There was no guarantee that I would’ve ever gotten all my legal fees back, and I just couldn’t take that chance.”

His fans came through with some financial help, after blogger Matthew Chan suggested that Carbone incorporate a donation button on his site. Chan also set up a petition on Change.org explaining how Reality Steve was being wrongfully accused.

Carbone told us that he very thankful for both Chan’s kindness and the support of his fans throughout the ordeal. Although he still has a hefty bill to pay, he’s grateful that they came through for him on both the financial side and the encouragement side.

As for the settlement, Carbone was hesitant to settle at first because he didn’t want to have to give up his civil liberties. The terms that he did agree to though only prevent him from initiating contact with the cast, crew, and other employees of the Bachelor regarding issues of the series.

“I’m still gonna be able to do what I do, and I was happy with their latest settlement,” he said.

He went on to say that readers should expect the same content they always have, which, of course, means more spoilers and juicy details. Although some people have suggested that the current Bachelorette season has been impacted by the lawsuit, Carbone disagrees. According to him, he’s not 100% sure on the ending yet and that’s why he hasn’t revealed it. But, he said, as soon as he is certain, he’ll publish it.

It seems that Google’s decision to replace its star rating system with Zagat scores for local search results isn’t a huge hit with some businesses.

Do you like Google’s new approach to local business ratings? Let us know in the comments.

Last month, Google revealed what appears to be the primary reason it acquired Zagat, when it announced Google+ Local, effectively replacing Google Places with Google+ infused local results and Zagat scores.

“Each place you see in Google+ Local will now be scored using Zagat’s 30-point scale, which tells you all about the various aspects of a place so you can make the best decisions,” Google explained, when Google+ Local was announced. “For example, a restaurant that has great food but not great decor might be 4 stars, but with Zagat you’d see a 26 in Food and an 8 in Decor, and know that it might not be the best place for date night.”

Some businesses claim to be losing traffic because Google replaced its ratings system with Zagat’s scoring system. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to an interesting thread in the Google Product Forums.

There, Dr. Rodney McKay writes, “I know for a fact that I am not the only one that feels this way as I have talked to others who have also experienced the same problem. Everything about Google+ seems to be fine if not better than Google Places except for the removal of the stars. Ever since they removed the star ratings, my actions or clicks went from 30 – 60 or more a day to 0 – 5. I am still on the first page of Google for relevant search terms and in most cases I am also the first listing, I am also receiving the same amount of impressions as before, but the absence of the stars has caused an obvious hit on my Google Business Listing effectiveness. Injunction with that, I have seen a drastic decline in business. Is there not a way to compromise and use the Zagat reviews as well as the stars?”

Some have suggested that Zagat scores are more suited to restaurants, and aren’t so great for other kinds of businesses. There’s no question that Zagat has historically been restaurant-focused. Even now, if you go to Zagat.com, it’s all about restaurants. The welcome message says:

ZAGAT.com, the world’s original provider of user-generated content, provides trusted and accurate restaurant ratings and curated restaurant reviews for thousands of top restaurants worldwide. Our robust restaurant search and rich free features help diners easily find the best restaurant for every occasion, every time – from New York to Los Angeles, London to Tokyo, Paris to Beijing and everywhere in between; from the most elegant restaurants for fine dining to casual, inexpensive spots for family meals, you’ll find it all on ZAGAT.com.

Yet Google has thrust the Zagat system across the much broader local business search space. I don’t see why the system couldn’t actually help some businesses, as Zagat is a pretty well known restaurant guide. However, it might be less helpful in other industries. Currently, you can search for shoe stores, for example, and still get the new scoring system, rather than the starred reviews:

As we see in the case of the shoe store above, Google shows the overall. That way it doesn’t have to show the “food” element.

“When we don’t have enough user ratings on different aspects, we will just show an overall score,” Google explains. “An overall score is comparable to a score in the primary aspect for a location, like food for restaurants.”

Perhaps the system will get better in time for more than just restaurants, as it’s used more.

The new system is definitely much broader than the previous star system, given its larger scale. 17 out of 30 doesn’t sound incredibly great but if you look at the scale, 16-20 represents “good to very good”. 0- 30 is pretty wide range to cover the four individual ratings Google goes by:

3 Excellent
2 Very Good
1 Good
0 Poor to Fair

Google takes the average, and multiplies it by ten to come up with averaged scores.

One person comment on Schwartz’s article, “People understand star ratings. Any kind of visual rating (progress bars, stars, thumbs-ups) just works. They don’t understand numbers. And when higher ratings are in red… it’s even worse. Numbers in red usually mean danger. Anything in red means danger unless it’s properly used to grab attention and visibly labeled as a call to action. It’s freaking common sense.”

It would be interesting to know the local SEO effects of Googe’s move to the Zagat system. Survey results released this week indicate that many of the top ranking factors are directly related to reviews. Here are how a few of them ranked, according to that (out of the top 90):

7. Quantity of Native Google Places Reviews (w/text) (REVIEWS)
18. Product/Service Keywords in Reviews (REVIEWS)
24. Quantity of Third-Party Traditional Reviews (REVIEWS)
26. Location Keywords in Reviews (REVIEWS)
31. Velocity of Native Google Places Reviews (REVIEWS)
34. Quantity of Reviews by Authority Reviewers (e.g.Yelp Elite, Multiple Places Reviewers, etc) (REVIEWS)
46. High Numerical Ratings by Authority Reviewers (e.g.Yelp Elite, Multiple Places Reviewers, etc) (REVIEWS)
49. Overall Velocity of Reviews (Native + Third-Party) (REVIEWS)
50. Quantity of Third-Party Unstructured Reviews (REVIEWS)
52. Quantity of Native Google Places Ratings (no text) (REVIEWS)
53. High Numerical Ratings of Place by Google Users (e.g. 4-5) (REVIEWS)
62. Velocity of Third-Party Reviews (REVIEWS)
69. High Numerical Third-Party Ratings (e.g. 4-5) (REVIEWS)
74. Positive Sentiment in Reviews (REVIEWS)

Of course, these are all based on survey responses from before Google announced Google+ Local.