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Insanity: Google Sends New Link Warnings, Then Says You Can Ignore Them

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Google’s war on bad links officially became insane today. For months, Google’s sending out warnings about bad links and telling publishers they should act on those, lest they get penalized. Today, Google said the latest round of warnings sent out this week can be safely ignored. That’s not “more transparency” as Google posted. That’s more confusion.

It’s easiest to do the history first, to better understand the confusion caused by today’s post.

How We Got Here: Link Warnings Earlier This Year

Toward the end of March and in early April, Google began sending out warnings about “artificial” or “unnatural” links, such like this one:

Dear site owner or webmaster of….

We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.

We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you’ve made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results.

If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.

If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.

Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team

There was some confusion about whether these messages meant that a site was actually penalized for having these links pointing at them or whether Google was just informing the sites but not really taking any negative action. Google’s response on this wasn’t clear:

Google has been able to trace and take action on many types of link networks; we recently decided to make that action more visible.

In the past, some links might have been silently distrusted or might not have carried as much weight. More recently, we’ve been surfacing the fact that those links aren’t helping to improve ranking or indexing.

The Penguin Attacks

In late April, the Google Penguin Update went live. Designed to fight spam, it especially seemed to take action by either penalizing publishers who had participated in bad linking activities (as determined by Google’s) or discounting those links, so they no longer carried as much weight.

All hell broke loose in some quarters, especially among those who had been actively using link networks to boost their rankings in ways that went against Google’s guidelines. One of the suggested recovery options from Google was to remove bad links.

Google Advice: Get Rid Of Bad Links

But what if people couldn’t get links taken down? The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, just generally suggested such a thing was possible without giving any specific advice.

This led further support to those who argued that “negative SEO” was now suddenly a real possibility, that any publisher could be targeted with “bad links” and made to plunge in Google’s rankings. Google stressed that negative SEO in this way is rare and hard. To this date, negative SEO still hasn’t seemed to be a wide-spread problem for the vast majority of publishers on the web.

Those reassurances — along with a Google help page update saying Google “works hard to prevent” negative SEO — hasn’t calmed some. Negative SEO has remained a rallying cry especially for many hit by Penguin (and many were deservedly hit) looking for a way to fight back against Google.

The New Link Building: Remove My Link Requests

But aside from the negative SEO sideshow, plenty of publishers tried to follow Google’s advice to get links removed. I’ve even had one come to me, from some publisher who was listed in ourSearchCap daily newsletter in the past and wanted us to pull down a link. Insane. A link from a reputable site like ours is exactly what you want, and yet they wanted it removed.

The insanity has gotten even worse. We’ve had people threatening to sue to have links removed. We’ve covered that before. Boing Boing also covered another case today (without providing any of the background on how Google itself has fueled some of this craziness).

Today, we covered how some directories are now charging people to have links removed. Let’s be really clear on how topsy-turvey that means things have become. People have wanted links in the past and have been willing to pay for them (despite this being against Google’s rules). Now they’re perhaps willing to pay to have links taken down.

June: Google Says Don’t Ignore Link Warnings

But you’ve got to get those links removed, if you’ve gotten a warning message. After all, Google has said that. In June, at our SMX Advanced conference, Cutts said this about those link warnings:

You should pay attention. Typically your web site ranking will drop if you don’t take action after you get one of those notices.

Here’s the extended video clip on the topic:

 

But again, what to do if you can’t get links removed? Cutts said that Google might release a “disavow” tool. By the end of June, Bing even did launch such a link disavow tool — not that it helped with Google, of course. Those who had notices from Google about bad links pointing at them, notices they were supposed to take action on, still might not be able to get those links removed.

New Batch Of Warnings Goes Out

That leads to yesterday, when Google began sending out a new batch of link notices. Here’s an example of what one of those looks like:

Dear site owner or webmaster of….

We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes.

We encourage you to make changes to your site so that it meets our quality guidelines. Once you’ve made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google’s search results.

If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request.

If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.

Sincerely, Google Search Quality Team

Yes, that’s exactly the same content as what Google sent in late March. Nothing in the message gives the impression it can be ignored. It even encourages people who can’t get links removed to actively file a reconsideration request with Google.

July: Google Says You Can Ignore Link Warnings

But today, Cutts said this about the messages in a Google+ post:

If you received a message yesterday about unnatural links to your site, don’t panic. In the past, these messages were sent when we took action on a site as a whole.

Yesterday, we took another step towards more transparency and began sending messages when we distrust some individual links to a site. While it’s possible for this to indicate potential spammy activity by the site, it can also have innocent reasons.

For example, we may take this kind of targeted action to distrust hacked links pointing to an innocent site. The innocent site will get the message as we move towards more transparency, but it’s not necessarily something that you automatically need to worry about.

If we’ve taken more severe action on your site, you’ll likely notice a drop in search traffic, which you can see in the “Search queries” feature Webmaster Tools for example.

As always, if you believe you have been affected by a manual spam action and your site no longer violates the Webmaster Guidelines, go ahead and file a reconsideration request. It’ll take some time for us to process the request, but you will receive a followup message confirming when we’ve processed it.

Like I said, this latest round of messages doesn’t seem to make things more transparent. The messages seem to be the same exact ones that Google previously told people they SHOULD worry about.

How About Just Saying If There’s A Real Concern

How do you know if you’re at risk if you get one of these new messages? Apparently, you also need to look at your traffic from Google and see if there’s a plunge. If so, you have a bad link problem. If not, well, you got a message that apparently can be ignored.

It would sure be much easier if the messages themselves said if action was really required or not. If there really was a penalty or not (in a world now where penalties that were penalties now might be “adjustments”).

That would be transparent. Instead, I predict this is all just going to cause greater confusion and panic, not more clarity and calmness.

It’s also yet another sign of how creaky the foundations or ranking sites based on links has become. It gets even more difficult these days to know what’s supposed to help or hurt. Links as votes suck.

Postscript: Google’s Matt Cutts commented below on Monday, July 23rd that the newer messages that can be safely ignored are now actually saying that:

An engineer worked over the weekend and starting with the messages that we sent out on Sunday, the messages are now different so that you can tell which type of situation you’re in. We also changed the UI in the webmaster console to remove the yellow caution sign for these newer messages. That reflects the fact that these newer notifications are much more targeted and don’t always require action by the site owner.

Source: http://searchengineland.com/insanity-google-sends-new-link-warnings-then-says-you-can-ignore-them-128297?utm_campaign=wall&utm_source=socialflow&utm_medium=facebook

List of DoFollow Social Bookmarking Sites

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As we all know that Do Follow links can help you in increasing your PR (Page Rank) on Google & also they can get some good quality traffic to your website in addition to better search engine rankings.

Getting Do Follow links to your blog /website is part of Off page SEO.Do Follow links are nothing but links without nofollow attribute defined.

They are different ways to build quality back links to your blog /website.Some of the methods to build back links is Forum Signatures /posting ,Blog page in Social Networking Sites, some quality guest blogging, social bookmarking, directory submission, link exchange, press releases etc. In this post I have given some  social bookmarking sites with Page Rank [ PR ] 7,8 & 9 which are do follow .

Why to use Social Bookmarking Sites to get back links ?

By sharing your blog posts to social Bookmarking sites, they can be accessed easily in future using tags/ keywords. Social Bookmarking sites will give you some quality back links & getting some targeted traffic to your blog.They also give you some Brand Image.

Top Do Follow Social Bookmarking Sites 2012

Website PageRank Alexa Rank Do-Follow Popularity
slashdot.org 8 1,752 Yes 97.90%
reddit.com 8 120 Yes 94.90%
technorati.com 8 1,368 Yes 93.30%
folkd.com 7 3,753 Yes 90.30%
metafilter.com 7 1,997 Yes 87.70%
current.com 7 8,494 Yes 80.20%
connotea.org 8 11,237 Yes 76.30%
tipd.com 5 15,372 Yes 73.40%

The above provide statistics are at the time of writing this post. Alexa Rank, Page Rank, Do Follow Status, Popularity can change in later point of time. Please let me know If I had missed to mention some quality Social Book Marking site in the above list.

Source: http://www.zendylabs.com/blogging/list-of-dofollow-social-bookmarking-sites/

How to Create a Business Page On Google Plus — A SPN Exclusive

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Google+ is now allowing the creating of business pages. Previously Google+ was only open to individuals. Now you can create a business page for your brand on Google+. Since Google basically owns search and all their other properties like YouTube, Blogger.com and Google Places get priority in search it would not be a bad idea to have a Google+ business page in addition to your personal profile.

However, to start with Google+ you first need to create a personal profile. It is from within the personal profile that the business page is created. Here is an article telling youhow to get started with Google+.

To create a Google+ business page you need to go here. If you are not logged into your Google account you will be prompted to do so.

The first thing you need to do is to pick a category. You have a choice of 5 main categories.

See image

1. Local Business Or Place- This is generally for local brick and mortar businesses like hotels, restaurants, local stores and services that focus on the local market like plumbers and doctors. If your phone number matches an existing Google Places page it will take the information from the Google Places page. If not, you need to fill out the information for your business.

Note: I have noticed that in some markets Google+ business pages were given priority listing for local search where there were not already a lot of Google Places pages. The Google+ pages were ranking first for local search above the regular natural listings. So local businesses should really pay attention to Google+ and create a business page. Check out these search results for“Doctors Mumbai”. One of the Google Places listings is a Google+ page. The Google+ page generally goes to the about section so make sure you fill this section out completely and include your keywords.

2. Product Or Brand – Examples of products and brands would be financial services, cars, electronics,

3. Company Institution or Organization – This is for different types of organizations, including but exclusively non-profits.

4. Arts Entertainment and Sports

5. Other – If you do not feel your page fits into any of the above categories you can choose ‘Other’. If you do so, however, you must also choose whether your page’s content is suitable for any Google+ user, users 18 or older, users 21 or older or specifically note that the content will be alcohol-related. I have seen edgy adult related sites on Google+ so it seems Google+ is allowing some adultish content because they are asking you to identify such content when you register your page rather than outright banning it.

This is all I could find in Google+ TOS: “Further, we may not allow verification of local Google+ pages for certain products and services such as escort services or other regulated goods.” The door looks cautiously open on this subject.

Customize Your Page’s Public Profile

Now you need to customize your page’s public profile. This is important. Make sure you fill everything out completely. Use your keywords without stuffing. Tell everything about your business, including relevant links. Do not just skip quickly over this section. The information here is what will be used to find you in search. Chances are many searchers will find your Google+ page before your main website so pack this section with relevant info.

1. Add your profile photo and tagline.

2. Edit your page information. Click on the profile icon at the top left then go to the About tab and edit profile. Include as much information and as many appropriate links as possible.

3. Add your Photostrip. The photostrip are the five photos that will be displayed beneath your page’s name and tagline. While editing your profile, click on the photo area where it says “add photos here” and upload a photo in each of the five photo spots.

Your business page is now ready! You can start adding posts and content to this page just like you did with your personal Google+ profile. Once you have filled your page with some quality content you can use the “Spread the word” option in your right sidebar to announce your page to your personal profile connections.

The big difference between a Facebook fanpage and a Google+ business page is that you can follow your page’s fans back and add them to your circles. This allows for more interaction and more interaction with those specifically interested in one topic.

Source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2012/07/22/how-to-create-a-business-page-on-google-plus-a-spn-exclusive-3/

Ad Nauseam: Are Facebook Ads Really Worth It?

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Ad Nauseam: Are Facebook Ads Really Worth It?

In theory, advertising on Facebook allows marketers to reach one of the largest populations of potential buyers possible. Short of throwing up a banner ad on the moon, it’s unlikely that you’re going to find an outlet with more upside – the network is approaching 1 billion users.

In theory.

But of course, unlike a Super Bowl ad or the like, not everyone in the target population is going to see any given Facebook advertisement. Whether it be a Sponsored Story in a user’s news feed or a more traditional ad on the side of the page, they are all competing with each other for attention at all times.

Is Facebook the best place to advertise? The worst? Somewhere in between? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages to a paid Facebook campaign? Let us know in the comments.

Are people seeing the ads? Are they getting lost amidst the busy Facebook homepage? Do users even notice them anymore? Are Sponsored Stories more effective that traditional ads? All of these questions are simply part of a larger question that marketers have been asking themselves recently.

Is advertising on Facebook worth it?

General Motors makes a move

Although it’s an advertiser’s job to ask the “is it worth it?” question regarding any medium that they consider throwing cash into, the spotlight seemed to turn directly on Facebook after a very public breakup between the social network and a giant American automaker.

Back in May (right before the IPO), General Motors yanked all of their paid advertising from Facebook. According to the reports, GM was unconvinced of the effectiveness of advertising on the site. GM’s Marketing Chief Joel Ewanick said that the company was “definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important.”

Short and sweet version: Facebook ads don’t really work, but we gotta maintain a brand page.

This decision resonated among the social media/advertising community (and in the halls at Menlo Park, I assume). A few days later, the blow of this giant pullout was lessened a bit when we learned that GM was also planning on ditching its Super Bowl ad campaign in 2013. Maybe the Facebook exodus wasn’t personal after all – maybe it was simply part of a bigger strategy. We have to concede, however, that the timing of it all, days before the IPO, reeks just a bit.

Earlier this month, we heard that GM may be returning to the Facebook ad game, as executives at both companies have had talks. Even so, GM dropping its Facebook ad strategy just days before the IPO solidified the uneasiness and trepidation surrounding the culture of Facebook advertising.

Advertiser confidence on shaky ground

The folks over at GM aren’t the only advertisers that have doubted the efficacy of Facebook ads. Some recent reports from brand marketers and agency executives have painted a less-than-rosy picture concerning confidence that Facebook is a worthwhile platform to spend a good chunk of ad dollars.

33across’ Advertiser and Agency Study looked at over 2000 of these professionals and came up with a pretty interesting stat: 71% said that they were focusing 80% of their attention on other advertising mediums not named Facebook. Just four months ago, only 58% of ad men were mostly staying away from Facebook.

Not only that, but only 7% said that they were putting the majority of their ad dollars into Facebook. A whopping 0% said that 80% of their efforts come in the form of Facebook ads. Back in March, that number was small, but present at 4%.

In all, post-IPO, more than five times the number of respondents said that they were planning on decreasing their Facebook ad spending.

Another study of marketer/agency exec attitudes came to this conclusion: Facebook is vital, but Facebook ads may not be.

You see, although 86% said that Facebook is currently a part of their paid advertising strategy, 88% said that they would consider forgoing all of the paid stuff and just sticking with “implementing Facebook content.” If you’ve heard that before, just look a few lines up a what GM said. Basically, they’re both saying that having a presence on Facebook is important, but they can own, operate, and promote content through their brand pages for free.

The same group of people was asked their opinion of how useful Facebook is a “driving purchase intent.” Only 12.2% said that it is “very useful.” 19% said they didn’t know. 13.4% said it’s not useful at all and 55.5% said that it’s “somewhat” useful. What’s our takeaway here?

One word. “Meh.”

Facebook’s post-IPO ad blitz

Right before the IPO, marketing software provider WordStream released a report card comparing Facebook and Google in the ad game. Long story short, Google won. In their mind, Facebook failed at their ad targeting options and ad formats.

“So far, Facebook’s advertising platform hasn’t kept pace with the explosive growth of its social network, and it remains to be seen if CEO Mark Zuckerberg even wants to focus on advertising as a source of revenue,” said WordStream’s Larry Kim. “In his 2,500+ word letter to shareholders…he mentioned advertising just once.”

Of course, Zuck and the team has to focus on advertising. Since going public, monetization is probably the only thing that’s been on his mind.

That’s because it’s the main concern of anyone looking to the future of the company. And monetization in general isn’t the real concern – it’s actually mobile monetization that has been a hot topic surrounding Facebook both before and after the IPO.

“We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven… and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected”

Those words came straight from Facebook in their IPO filings. Zuckerberg himself has since echoed those claims. And in an effort to “generate meaningful revenue,” Facebook is in the process of making quite a few changes to their advertising options – which is good news for advertisers.

In one of the most important tweaks to their ad platform, Facebook now allows advertisers to purchase mobile-only Sponsored Stories. Before, you couldn’t choose exactly where the Sponsored Story you paid for would show up. But now, mobile-only targeting is one of five different ad options that Facebook offers.

We also know that a new ad platform, Facebook Exchange, is on the way. It’s basically a real-time ad bidding service that allows advertisers to target Facebook users based on previous activities. Here’s how I explained it before:

The premise of Facebook Exchange is pretty simple: When you visit a site (other than Facebook) and spend some time looking at a product, but don’t make the final purchase – that third-party site will be able to follow you to Facebook and target you there with a highly specialized ad.

For example, let’s say that I spent a good while checking out a new watch on a third-party retailer’s site (that has enlisted a demand-side platform) – let’s go with Swatch. Although I didn’t actually end up buying the watch, I was on the site long enough for them to determine that I was very interested in it – so they hit me with a cookie.

If the advertiser (in this case Swatch) wanted to pursue me beyond the walls of its site, the demand-side platform would contact Facebook and use an anonymous User ID to show intent to target me. Now, the next time I log in the Facebook, that cookie alerts everyone to my presence and the advertiser is allowed to make a real-time bid to show a pre-rendered ad to me.

And if everything goes according to plan, I’ll see a perfectly targeted ad for that blue Swatch watch I was eyeing earlier that day – or even earlier that week.

We’ve also heard reports that Facebook will soon be targeting mobile ads based on app usage. This means that if you play a lot of Zynga’s game Word with Friends, you may see an ad for another Zynga game like Scramble with Friends. As a user, you wouldn’t even have to have “liked” Zynga to see this ad. That’s because Facebook knows you’re playing Words with Friends because it forces you to log in through Facebook connect.

And it’s not only mobile ads that have been seeing some changes (or proposed changes). Recently, Facebook has been experimenting with showing more traditional right-side ads on pages as well as switching out the ads when users linger on a page.

Of course, all the ads, ads, ads could be having a negative effect on user engagement. In the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook did just drop nearly 8% since 2011.

Some good signs for Facebook ads

If advertisers are going to retain/regain faith in Facebook ads, they probably need to see results. A recent report from TBG Digital suggests that Facebook ads are engaging – much more so than a competing service like Twitter.

TBG’s report looked at click-through rates of Facebook ads – both mobile and desktop – and compared them to Twitter ads in the user feed. They found that Facebook ads on desktop has a CTR of .588%, and mobile ads nearly doubled that at a rate of 1.14%. By comparison, Twitter ads had a CTR of .266%. That means, on average Facebook ads (mobile and desktop) are around three times as effective as Twitter ads.

Facebook’s higher CTR was attributed to the effectiveness of Sponsored Stories in the news feed, which feel more organic and less like a traditional ads. TBG also found that right-side traditional ads are becoming more and more ignored.

Data from a few Facebook Ads API partners echoes the good news about Facebook ads – when it comes to mobile. One parter found that Facebook mobile ads had a CTR that quadrupled the combined CTR of all other types of ad placements. Another source went even higher, reporting a 25x efficacy for mobile ads over other traditional ads.

A small legal problem going forward

Now that we’ve seen just how effective mobile ads in the form of Sponsored Stories can be, it’s time to tell you that Facebook is soon going to have to let you opt out of being featured as a Sponsored Story.

This comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by five plaintiffs in California. They claimed that Facebook had violated the law by using their likeness in advertisements (Sponsored Stories) without their consent, compensation, or the ability to opt out.

Facebook settled the suit with a $10 million cy-pres payment, which will go to charity. But they also agreed to amend their Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and implement an opt-out mechanism for Sponsored Stories. The opt-out mechanism will allow for user to exempt any past activities from begin featured as Sponsored Stories, although it won’t prevent them from seeing Sponsored Stories in their own news feeds.

From the settlement:

Facebook will create an easily accessible mechanism that enables users to view the subset of their interactions and other content that have been displayed in Sponsored Stories. Facebook will further engineer settings to enable users, upon viewing the interactions and other content that have been used in Sponsored Stories, to control which of these interactions and other content are edible to appear in additional Sponsored Stories.

This may not be a killer, but it definitely impacts Facebook’s ability to get advertisers enthusiastic about ads, as well as advertisers confidence in the ads’ efficacy.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/ad-nauseam-are-facebook-ads-really-worth-it-2012-07

Unique Opportunities for Businesses Using Google+

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In previous articles, I have written about how Google+ Local pages impact SEO and why Google+ is not just another social networking site that businesses should wait and see if it catches on before jumping in. Google+ is an architecture that Google intends to use to bring a social layer to every Google touch point you already use on the web – search, networking, advertising, gmail, video chats, maps, mobile, etc. Having just celebrated it’s first birthday, Google+ offers businesses several unique ways to create and distribute content, expand networks, and understand how content is being viewed and shared.

Circles

When Google first introduced Google+, it’s most talked about feature was the ability to divide your social network into Circles. For businesses, this has a clear advantage. Separating your customers, prospects, vendors, and colleagues into groups that are specific to your business allows you share content with only those people in your network for whom it is relevant. Circles can also act as filters for the content you view from people in your network, making it easier to listen to what your network is saying. Imagine you had an IT consultancy that serviced Mac and Windows, Servers and Desktops. If you created Circles accordingly, you could easily share news about updates, security warnings, etc. with clients based on the information that mattered to them.

Hangouts

Hangout is a real-time group video chat application that is accessed directly in the Google+ interface. At first it doesn’t seem to be any different than other video chat services, but there are a couple of unique features that offer a real advantage to innovative businesses. To begin with, you can broadcast your hangouts to a wider audience through Youtube. You also have the ability to record, edit and post your hangouts on your Youtube page or host a hangout to view and discuss an existing Youtube video.

The ways for businesses to utilize Hangout – team meetings, group collaboration, customer service, easy creation of video content, and many other training and marketing possibilities – seems endless. Hangout utilizes HTML5 rather than Flash, and Google has opened the platform to 3rd party applications through an API. They are hoping this distinguishes Hangout from other video chat applications and continues to get consumers and enterprises hooked on their platform and services. You are currently able to download games and office related applications including whiteboard and slideshow sharing.

Events

Google+ Events is a new feature that was introduced at the developers conference last month. It also offers some unique features that can be used creatively by digitally adept businesses. It acts as a shared photo album for all participants of an event – In conjunction with the Circles filtering, this becomes a quick and easy way to share photos and control who sees them. In party mode, people participating in the event can upload photos from their mobile devices and a stream is created chronologically.

This new social architecture offers businesses many ways to promote both their Google+ Local pages and content on their own sites in an effort expand their network. Understanding how Google connects your web sites with your Google+ Local profile is critical to taking full advantage of what is being offered to you.

By now, you are used to seeing the Google +1 button just about everywhere on the web. It allows viewers to share their preference for an article, video, business page, etc. with their Google+ network (filtered by Circles). More and more, you will see these preferences of people in your network showing up in search results, ads, Local, Maps, on your mobile devices, etc.

With a Google+ Local page and a verified URL, Direct Connect shows users who search for your business name and the “+” sign your page highlighted in their results. It displays recent posts and a preview of your profile and gives them the option to add you to their Circles, directly from the search results page. Businesses can help customers see recommendations from people in their network, wherever they find you on the web by connecting +1′s for your website with +1′s on your Google+ Local page as well as Google ads. You can link your Google+ Local page to your site using a Google+ Badge – a snippet of code that is created on the Google Developers site and pasted into your site.

Finally, Google promises that it will soon introduce many robust features allowing you to measure and track your engagement with your network wherever it occurs in the Google+ social platform. These include Google+ Search which Google claims can help your business “to understand better what people are saying about your brand, reward superfans with rebate coupons or even jump in to help resolve customer service issues”, Ripples to show you how your content is being spread across the web and which users are most influential, Social Reports in Google Analytics,  Google+ Local page metrics, and API integrations for 3rd party development.

Google claims that they now have 150 million active Google+ users, with 50 percent signing in daily, and that Active Google+ users are now spending more than 12 minutes a day in the stream – up from 9 minutes a day a few months ago. Mobile users are more active than web users, so expect development to continue with a strong focus on hand held devices, tablets and local search. Google+ Local pages have to be an essential part of any marketing strategy that utilizes SEO, SEM or aims to attract local traffic.

Google has produced a series of 11 videos that highlight the features on Google+ to learn more about how you can take advantage of these changes

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/unique-opportunities-for-businesses-using-google/

Google News: Why Your Position #1 Rankings may not be Enough

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As if Penguin, Panda and over-optimization penalties weren’t enough…

It seems as if Google ads are taking the once glorified organic positions and edging them out of the running.

New research shows that users who are inputting keywords with high commercial intent, click on ads twice as much as the organic listings for the same keywords.

Wordstream released an interesting infographic about the war between Google ads and organic listings.

According to Wordstream founder and CEO, Larry Kim, “…we did some research to see how those changes impacts where users click on Google search results. The results were astonishing: Clicks from paid search now outnumber clicks from organic (un-paid) search listings by nearly 2:1 for high commercial intent keyword searches in the USA.”

Here is a snippet of the Wordstream infographic:

When analyzing search from high intent keywords (high intention to buy), 64.6% of the clicks went to sponsored ads as opposed to 34.5% going to organic results.

We have already witnessed Google’s new quest to oust over-optimization and spam, which are good things, but the search engine is also making organic rankings harder and harder to accomplish.

Is Google crowding out organic listings with its paid listings?

Here are some stats found by Wordstream:

  • Organic results account for just 14.8% of the above-the-fold pixels
  • On average, the top 3 spots (ads) take 41.1 % of the clicks on a specific page analyzed
  • Sponsored ads on high commercial intent keywords take up 85.2% of the above-the-fold pixels.
  • On average, the top organic listing gets just 8.9% of the clicks

If you are active in SEO lingo, you will recognize the reference to “above the fold,” which refers to the listings you visibly see without the need to scroll down the page.

I ran an Ecommerce store starting in 2007, and at the time my team and I would routinely check the websites above the fold on page 1 to see how they were ranking. We would watch the top five results religiously because they were visible above the fold in the organic listings. If I do a search for the same keywords now, this is what I see:

The top five organic listings above the fold in 2007 have now been reduced to one or two depending on your screen size.

In 2007,  20-30% of the clicks for a keyword went to the website in position #1 and approximately 8% went to the website in position #10. According to the Wordstream analysis, this number has now dropped to 9% for position #1.

The top listing is currently receiving the exact number of clicks position #10 did years ago.

You may have also noticed the reduced amount of whitespace between organic listing and paid search and a greater amount of whitespace also between the top of the ads and the search query box.

Here is a screenshot of a Google search provided by rimkaufman.com from 2007 for the keyword “rack door”. Notice the distance between the ads and organic listings. Also, observe how close the search box and the results are without much white space between them.

Below is a recent screenshot for the same phrase “rack door” performed yesterday. There is a significant amount of whitespace added below the search query box which pushes everything down the page—hence the organic results are further down. Also, notice the reduced whitespace between the ads and organic listings. The advertisements are encroaching upon the once-coveted organic listing area.

It also appears that Google has been trying to unify the appearance of the ads with organic listings so searchers will not know the difference between them. According to Wordstream, in a survey, 45.5% of people couldn’t identify paid ads on the search engine results page if there wasn’t a right column.

What do you think?

Though Google is on an all-out quest to banish spam (which is a good thing), we have heard from many of you who are unsatisfied with recent algorithm changes. And with Google making it harder for searchers to even notice organic rankings, to many, SEO has become somewhat of a “jaded” industry.

So for all my readers out there, I would like to ask a few questions…

How have you dealt with the Google changes? Have you jumped ship altogether? Do you get most of your traffic from ads (PPC)?

Here are some opinions that are floating around the web:

“Google is slowly edging out free listings and forcing marketers to pay”
“Google can do whatever it wants. It’s a business and trying to make more money like anyone else”
“People shouldn’t rely strictly on Google traffic; diversification is the name of the game.”
“All of these changes will spell Google’s downfall.”

Which opinion do you agree/disagree with?

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/google-news-why-your-position-1-rankings-may-not-be-enough/

Paying for Penalties: Lies That Shady SEO Companies Tell

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Ever since Panda and Penguin (Google’s major changes to how they rank websites in order to fight web spam) have hit, a lot of companies have lost a large percentage of their website visitors. Bewildered by their sudden misfortune, many of these business owners have turned to me to review their websites and their SEO practices to determine where they went wrong and what they need to do to get back into Google’s good graces.

While many of them had been doing their own SEO based on what they’ve picked up through the years, a few have had SEO companies (and I use this term loosely) “helping” them. Sadly, what some of these companies do worked okay in a pre-Panda-Penguin world, even though it was garbage that doesn’t come close to following SEO best practices. The fact that it worked is what has kept SEO web spammers in business for so long. And it’s possible that to a certain extent, what they’re doing may still work for a short time — at least until Google reprocesses their ranking formula. That’s when the panda poop hits the fan!

If it were just a matter of the links no longer counting, it wouldn’t be so bad. But these days not only does the site lose any additional Google traffic they may have gained from the bad SEO, they start receiving even less traffic than they were getting before the bad links.

Here’s an example of this:

And here’s another example:

You’ll notice in both of these examples that the start of the major loss of Google traffic started toward the end of April, right around when ‘the Penguin first came to town. In the first instance, the client was (and is) very web UNsavvy. She knows very little about her own website and online marketing in general, let alone much about SEO. I’m not sure if she contacted the SEO company directly to “help” her, or if it was unsolicited. Either way, the web spammers quickly found they were dealing with their favorite type of customer — trusting and naïve. Not to mention desperate. The website had been losing traffic and sales since the early Panda days in 2010. (Due to not much content and simply not keeping up with what other companies in the space were doing.)

Signs That Your SEO Sucks

When I reviewed the site and looked at the links pointing to it, I saw a lot of terribly written spammy blog (splog) posts having been submitted to irrelevant, crappy splog networks, article submission sites, and fake directories. They all had a few different keyword phrases that pointed back to the home page of the client’s site. The dates of the posts were all from around the time that the site had its initial boost in Google traffic.

These links were obviously fake, purchased and extremely low in quality. For instance, one was in a directory on a domain that had a section pertaining to link building services as well as a splog full of wonderful articles which nobody in their right mind would be interested in reading — ever. In fact, the client’s site was linked from a number of directories that all looked the same, but were on different domain names and using a different name and background color. High class and high quality they were not! My favorites were the links right next to ones for “buying text links!” (They’re a nice change from the ones next to credit card and payday loan links!)

Shoddy SEO That You Pay For

In addition to creating barely readable content and submitting it to their icky splog networks, this SEO company also wrote useless, grammatically incorrect articles and put them into a blog on the client’s own site. Of course, these all had anchor text pointing back to the home page. I was surprised that they didn’t even go to the trouble of pointing the anchor text to the most appropriate pages within the site instead of the home page, but that may have taken some actual work to figure out where they should go! (Web spammers don’t believe in actually working.)

To top it off, they even stuck a link to their own SEO site with the anchor text of “SEO” on every page of the client’s site! (It wasn’t clear to me whether she gave them permission to do this or not.)

When I pointed out all of the above in my SEO site audit report to the client, I told her to have the company remove all of the links and explained why they were bad. And here’s where it got weird. The company emailed her back trying to convince her that they were not a spammy SEO company at all and that everything they were doing for her was on the up-and-up. When she asked them for a list of the links they had built for her, they had the gall to say that only black hat link building companies would be able to provide a list of their links. (Huh?)

Whom Do You Trust?

But the really scary part is that their answers sounded credible and believable to one who wouldn’t know better. This poor client was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She had me on the one hand telling her that what this company did was likely a big reason why she was no longer making any sales, and them telling her, “But you’re ranking for the keywords we chose together.” (This was true to some extent because the site was still ranking for some of the non-competitive phrases that nobody searches for.) And then they tried to scare the client by telling her that if they removed the links, her rankings would plummet and she’d lose even more traffic. They also tried to weasel out by saying that perhaps her shopping cart was not working properly (which, even if true, wouldn’t account for the nearly complete loss of Google traffic).

Finally, in answer to their half-truths, I told her that any reputable SEO company knows that the types of things this company does are considered to be web spam — certainly after Google Penguin, if not before. And the very fact that they were continuing to claim that what they were doing was all well and good showed just how horrible and unethical they were. In fact, I was so enraged by this that I told her to tell them that if they didn’t want to remove the spammy junk and wouldn’t give her money back, I’d be happy to write about them to my 25K newsletter subscribers.

At this point I haven’t heard back from her. I decided to write this article anyway (without naming names) so that others can learn from it. I hope that the more this kind of SEO gets talked about, and pointed out as the web spam that it is, the more others will stop spending money to get themselves penalized by Google.

Source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2012/07/15/paying-for-penalties-lies-that-shady-seo-companies-tell/

Authority Sites Versus Niche: Where Do You Stand?

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Does it seem like niche site building will soon become an ancient Internet relic?

I’m starting to think the answer may be yes. This week, I noticed a little trend emerging in the Internet marketing blogosphere: debate over whether authority sites are a better business model than niche sites. There are ardent advocates on each side, and both have valid arguments.

Authority Sites: The Pros

On the AdSense Flippers website, the guys moderated an entire 4000+ word debate pitting authority sites against niche sites. Super affiliate and authority site owner Steve Scott argued for authority sites, and a niche site-builder named Mike Thomas argued in favor of niche websites.

To be clear, let’s look at the great definition of the two terms that Scott offered up during his portion of the debate:

Niche and Authority Site Defined

Scott continued by pointing out the merits of an authority site. He explained that authority sites should be considered long-term investments. The idea is to build up a readership; a loyal following that will trust your recommendations, identify with your brand, and buy from you repeatedly for the long haul.

The biggest plus that Scott noted, however, was something we’ve been talking about here at Site-Reference for months now:

It’s better to build your online business in a way that you control completely. Diversifying your traffic sources and creating a brand will future-proof your website and protect it from Google’s changes.

When you create an authority site – a true authority site – it’s here to stay, with or without Google. New and returning visitors alike will continue typing your site’s address directly into their browsers, visiting your site through links, and finding it through shares on social networks. The long-term value of an authority site? Well, it’s incalculable.

The Cons of Authority Sites

It’s funny: it seems that ever since the last Google algo update, the talk has been non-stop authority sites. It’s become the buzzword in the Internet marketing world right now. But what webmasters are forgetting is that they can’t simply pay people to “make” an authority site. They can hire writers, SEO experts, etc., but they can’t buy the trust that comes from a solid foundation of long-term, repeated visitors. That kind of reputation takes years and heaps of value-add to achieve.

An authority site simply can’t be manufactured.

You can buy an authority site – sure – at a ridiculous premium. But the high price is justified due to the sheer longevity and power of such a site in a particular niche.

That’s the primary downside of an authority site. It could take months, and in most cases, years, to see any kind of real return on investment. That’s exactly what caused Spencer Haws of Niche Pursuits to throw in the towel after only a few short months. In his blog post this week – aptly titled I Can Only Handle 1 Authority Site, Back to Niche Sites – Haws lamented about the difficultly that comes with authority site building:

Haws on Authority Site-Building

It’s a lot of work. Indeed. And it’s a time commitment. As in a working-on-it-for-the-next-decade time commitment.

Seriously.

That’s what it takes to become a true authority: loving your topic to tears and writing about it tirelessly, networking with others in the same arena, and committing to grow the site… forever. Or until you sell it. Haws himself summed up the biggest drawback of managing an authority site – the time suck.

Pros of Niche Websites

In his announcement post about the change in course, Haws enthusiastically discussed his reasoning for returning to niche website building – even after Google banned him from AdSense and closed his account.

“Niche sites have always been the core of my business, but the early part of this year really shook me up. I’ve looked at the damage and still see a pretty sweet business. I still earn a great passive income from my niche sites (yes it’s much less), even after Penguin and AdSense closure. I’m ready to emerge stronger after the storm,” says Haws.

“Who’s with me?” Haws asks, “I know the risks, and I’ve always bounced back after penalties, deindexing, and more.”

Interesting point-of-view. I’m against spamming the Internet, and I’m all for authority sites. But the perspective is interesting. His is similar to Thomas’ viewpoint supporting niche sites in the AdSense Flippers debate.

I’m thinking that a niche website does have its purpose. I read quite a few articles that outlined a strategy of creating niche websites in order to find out which areas would be profitable without wasting time building an authority site – only to find out there’s no money in the niche. I agree with that wholeheartedly, but there must be a better way to find this out.

(By the way: I’d love to hear your thoughts on that in the comments below!)

During the AdSense Flippers debate, Thomas noted, “It all depends on how you build your niche sites. I’ve seen supposed “authority” websites that have a ton of content but were spammy as heck with spun or poorly-written content, no images, and placed on a free commonly-used theme.

I’ve also seen niche sites that had only one page of content, but the content was well-written, included relevant images, and was placed on a theme with a unique header. If you were a Google reviewer which website would you penalize first?”

Niche Sites: The Cons

I almost agreed with the argument made by Thomas. Then I checked out the page where he sold his niche websites. Here’s an excerpt from one of the articles in which he discusses his backlinking methods of choice for the niche sites he creates:

“Unique Article Wizard- I use the spun article I get from EZArticleLink also here. In that way I can get even more links out of the spun article.

Article Marketing Robot- I use this to give my sites a blast of link juice. You need to run this in Windows as it’s not available for Mac.

Social Adr- This service lets you put your social bookmarking on autopilot. There’s a free account where you get credits in return for bookmarking other people’s links, or you can skip that and pay for the service. I have a paid subscription.”

Okay, but wait. His niche sites are not spammy?

See, that’s the biggest drawback of niche websites right there.

They’re created to rank quickly and by any means possible. Most of the time, they’re sites about such exciting topics as “push reel lawn mowers” or my personal fave, “red gym socks”. People won’t be excited to link to sites like these. You can’t really build an engaged community around socks. Therefore, spamming the web is pretty much the only way to get links to sites like these. It is what it is.

It is inherently risky to build your business upon something you have no control over. If you depend on Google AdSense for your sole source of income and you build hundreds of niche sites, your time is ultimately limited with the program.

So, should you build niche sites while creating an authority site? Build a portfolio of niche sites alone? Work on your beloved authority site for years and *hope* that it will be an earner?

The choice is up to you, but whatever route you choose is a roll of the dice.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/authority-sites-versus-niche-where-do-you-stand/

Facebook’s Still Debating Whether or Not to Let in Your 12-Year-Old; Are You Still Concerned?

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Facebook’s Still Debating Whether or Not to Let in Your 12-Year-Old; Are You Still Concerned?

I’m 27 years old.

Actually, I’m not 27 years old. I’m 26 years old. I just lied on the internet! And trust me, it really is so easy that a preteen can do it.

And they do – all the time. Although Facebook’s current policy plainly prohibits anyone under the age of 13 from operating an account on the site, most reports put the number of preteen Facebook users in the millions. In fact, if a kid is on Facebook (under 18), there’s about a 2 in 5 chance that they are actually under the age of 13. Other reports, acknowledged by Facebook themselves, show that over half of parents with a 12-year-old child say that he/she has a Facebook account.

Do you think that Facebook is safe for kids under 13? If not, do you think it can be made safe with certain limitations and parental controls? Let us know in the comments.

Facebook says that they do all they can to identify and remove underage accounts – but it’s obviously one of the largest games of whack-a-mole ever. Close one down, five 11-year-olds log on in their place. Facebook removes somewhere around 20,000 underage accounts a day, and there’s still over 7.5 million under-13 accounts active on the site.

It doesn’t take the world’s most adept mathematician to see that this is a fight that’s going to be really hard to “win” with a simple ban. It’s clear that simply requiring age verification will never keep young kids off of Facebook. The site’s simply too popular. Everyone, including 10, 11, and 12-year-olds now require the social connectivity that it can provide.

Facing the evergreen problem that is trying to police all of these underage accounts, it shouldn’t shock anyone that Facebook is considering a new approach. Just over a month ago, we heard that the company was mulling over the idea of opening up the site to kids under the age of 13. We heard that Facebook’s “if you can’t beat them..” strategy would have preteen accounts closely monitored by parental controls – which would work in correlation with the safeguards that Facebook already has in place regarding minors’ privacy.

If they’re going to do it anyway, we may as well have them do it under proper supervision, right?

Early concerns

If we believe the stats, the majority of parents with 12-year-olds know that their kids are on Facebook. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are cool with it. Once the news of Facebook’s possible shift in age restrictions, people seemed to come out of every conceivable corner of the outrage circuit to voice their opinions.

And who can blame concerned parents? Facebook (and social communication in general) can be a minefield for older teens and even adults – and most people’s natural inclination is to protect young children at all costs. All a parent has to hear is one nightmarish story about child predation and subtle manipulation on Facebook, and the negatives of social networking immediately outweigh any positives. And although Facebook horror stories aren’t so commonplace as to become routine, there are still enough floating around to engender some concern.

To some parents, no amount of control or guidance would make them feel truly comfortable with opening up their preteens to the risks – either external or internal.

In one of the first major addresses of Facebook’s possible plans, nearly a dozen consumer groups sent a joint letter to Mark Zuckerberg. That letter contained some “demands” for any scenario where Facebook opens up the service to kids under 13.

Although the groups mentioned parental controls, and increased privacy for preteen members, their main point involved ads on the site – in that there shouldn’t be any when it comes to kids:

[T]he company’s business model relies, at its very core, on data collection, ad targeting, and viral marketing, and many of its practices have generated public and government privacy concerns. If Facebook opens itself up to a younger audiences, we want assurances that any space created for children under the age of 13 on the site is safe, parent-guided and controlled, and, most importantly, free of ads (including the range of practices that are routinely employed through social media marketing).

Congressional pressures and the evolution of Facebook responses

When the rumors began to fly concerning Facebook’s possible age-shift, the company was unsurprisingly unspecific about their actual thought process. Upon the initial reports, Facebook told me that they were “in continuous dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.”

After the letter from the privacy groups, Facebook started to say that they were open to suggestions:

Enforcing age restrictions on the Internet is a difficult issue, especially when many reports have shown parents want their children to access online content and services. We welcome today’s recommendations by consumer, privacy, health and child groups as we continue our dialogue with stakeholders, regulators and other policymakers about how best to help parents keep their kids safe in an evolving online environment.

Now, thanks to a newly-released letter from Facebook to two Congressmen, we know that Facebook is still thinking about it, but are a ways away from a final determination.

“At this point, we have made no final decision whether to change our current approach of prohibiting children under 13 from joining Facebook,” said the company.

That’s just a blip in a much-longer letter that the company sent Republican representative Joe Barton and Democratic representative Ed Markey. The two House members sent Facebook a letter back in early June outlining their concerns regarding the protection of kids on the site.

Facebook’s response mirrors many responses the company has had to questions raised by concerned parties. For one, they reiterate that any decision they make will be mindful of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a law that Facebook has formally addressed in a highly detailed fashion. The bulk of the response involves Facebook talking about their current features that promote safety for minors, in lieu of having yet made any actual decisions on the sub-13 crowd.

Facebook actually does do a lot, already

In addition to the everyday privacy controls that all Facebook users have access to, the company already has an admittedly impressive set of features in place that are designed to protect the network’s younger crowd.

  • For instance, Facebook users aged 13-17 have different sharing settings, by default, than those users who are 18+. A minor’s sharing capabilities are limited to friends and friends of friends – no more. Also, if you’re not a friend of a friend of a minor, it’s physically impossible for you to send them a direct message.
  • In a more controversial move, we recently learned that Facebook is actively monitoring the millions and million of chats and messages between their 900+ million users. Why monitor chats, you may ask? Because Facebook is always on the lookout for suspicious behaviors. And their software scans communications all across the network, looking for possibly criminal activity. That, of course, includes inappropriate conversations between minors and possible predators. Facebook’s monitoring software works in two distinct ways. First, it puts more weight into focusing on conversations between members who aren’t especially connected in any significant way – few mutual friends, new friendships, etc. Second, the message scan can identify certain words and phrases that could signal illicit communications. As a Facebook user, you can raise concerns about privacy and the legality of this sort of monitoring – and your concerns would be legitimate. But from a protecting kids standpoint, it’s hard to argue that this sort of technology is of great benefit.
  • Facebook also bans sex offenders from participating in the network – outright. So do many states as well, although these laws are currently begin challenged by free speech activists as we speak.
  • As a company that’s put a lot of effort into anti-bullying campaigns (having even been recognized for their work), Facebook says it’s a priority to keep users, especially minors, safe from harassment. Just recently, Facebook made a few tweaks to their reporting mechanisms to help in that effort. Now, when minors feel threatened by a particular post, the “report” procedure has been softened and made a bit more conversational and inviting. For instance “report” will be replaced with “This post is a problem.” After clicking, teens will be walked through the process with scenario-specific questions.

But is it enough?

“Children are not commodities, and their personal information should not be harvested to yield ad revenue for Facebook and its hungry shareholders,” said Rep. Markey, co-author of the letter to Facebook. “The privacy of personal information for pre-teens should not become a post-script in Facebook’s drive for profits.”

Even if Facebook opened up the network to preteens and did so by giving parents granular control over all aspects of their experience, would it be enough to assuage the concerns of many? Even after knowing that Facebook is actively trying to protect young kids from seedy situations online, does it do anything to make you feel comfortable with the thought of your 10-year-old browsing their News Feed?

The advertising issue may be just as potent of an issue as privacy and safety. Both the consumer groups and the Congressmen made ads their front and center complaint.

You could argue that children are inundated with ads all the time – television, movies, etc. Hell, walk into a toy store and you’ve basically just put your kid in the middle of a giant advertisement for various products. How can parents think that targeted ads on Facebook are any more dangerous than a targeted ad on the Sunday morning cartoons?

Or on a site like YouTube?

But it’s clear that something about Facebook ads clearly rub people the wrong way – especially when it comes to children.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/facebooks-still-debating-whether-or-not-to-let-in-your-12-year-old-are-you-still-concerned-2012-07