UPDATED January 13th: this article is being updated regularly 

Haven’t we Seen this For a While Now?

This may sound similar to what you have seen over the past while where certain results had a profile shot of a friend next to them because your friend had recently given it a social nod (liked, +1′d, etc.) but this is far more intense. The new additions are opt-out only and include any of the following content showing in results if it is relevant: images, video, and websites. In addition, these results can also include semi-private and private content such as content shared with you via a limited circle in Google Plus or directly from someone in your network; note that does not mean this is visible to anyone else on Google so don’t get freaked about privacy unless you plan on leaving your browser logged in to your Google profile.

Here is the official (and rather cool) video Google used to demonstrate the functionality all Google users will soon see:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The biggest and most alarming takeaway here is that the only social content found within these socialized search results is that of Google Plus! That’s right, Google did not include one iota of content from Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or any other social platform. Their excuse is painfully simple and transparent; the others won’t let them spider their content to that degree (the simple part) and Google is whacking them over the head for it (the transparent part). Welcome to a classic case of cause and effect except in this case Google has tread heavily on dangerous ground.

So, based on this news did you pick up how Google just dropped its pants for its competitors? The outright antitrust implications of Google integrating its own social network into supposedly neutral search results without catering to the competition – the pants loosen. The full bare arse is revealed when Google made this new functionality opt-out by default; in other words you are in whether you like it or not until you manually remove yourself. This, in my opinion is the dumbest move imaginable and has the social industry quickly aiming at Google’s privates.

Here are a few examples of the rush of heated headlines spurned by this news:

• Twitter Really, Really Hates Google’s New Google+ Integration by Jason Kincaid at Tech Crunch
• Twitter: Google+ Integration In Google Search Is “Bad” For Everyone by Matt McGee, Marketing Land
• “Search, Plus Your World As Long as it is Our World” by John Battelle
• “Twitter Dumps on Google for Pushing Google+ in Search” by Liz Gannes of AllThingsDigital
• Many more are found here (this link will show the latest) courtesy of TechMeme

What Google Could Have Done to Minimize Anti-Trust Exposure

I don’t understand when a company willingly puts itself in the path of legal harm which Google clearly has done by not including its competitors in Search Plus; perhaps it is just another clear example of corporations having too much money to care. At any rate, I would have done one or both of the following options to minimize exposure:

1. Included the content that Google does have access to from the other social platforms. For example, they can index public information from any of the platforms; there is a lot to be had and we see it often in everyday searches on Google. By adding this information they would have the ability to say, “well we would love to include more but we need to create better relationships with each company to get more of that data.” At least that position would have held more water than simply not trying which opens a downright palatial foothold for an antitrust lawsuit.
2. Not everyone has a Google Profile but the advantages of having one is made abundantly clear if you want to take advantage of Google’s vast array of free applications. Since Google’s entire future strategy relies critically upon pushing Google Profiles it just makes sense to make Search Plus a very bold opt-in option when signing up.  And for those who already have a Profile, just use ads to push the benefits of Search Plus and make it dirt simple to enable the option. Chances are that many will take the option and by going this route Google is free and clear of antitrust; at least I think so based on my admittedly puny knowledge of law.

Living With Google Search Plus

One key request I have for Google: there needs to be a way to specify which circles I want to appear in results – that way I and fellow Google Plus users can create and monitor noisier circles within Google Plus without polluting our Search Plus results.

So what do you think? Should Google have rolled this out differently to not offend any of the social platforms or do you figure (as I do with some inner conflict) the other social platforms can shut their collective whining pie holes for not being more open with their data in the first place?

UPDATE #1 (Jan 12): Google Search Plus the World is provoking a lot of discussion so here are some related articles to check out that have been released since this article was posted:

Google Search Plus Your World – Cause and Effect (updated Jan 13) is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Micro Searching

Micro searching is a great way of connecting and reaching out across social media to increase your audience. These searches include different twists on the classic search and each of which will be explained individually.

Geo- Targeting: Being able to locate people and updates which have been sent within an “X mile radius” really does mean you can restrict your searches to only the most relevant distances and topics for you. Fantastic if you are holding an event in a town and want to get locals involved or if you have a product that you need local people to buy or use. MarketMeSuite is social media dashboard which lets you have all of your social network accounts in one place. And, most importantly, lets you target your tweet searches to location and using specific words using a feature called “Reply Campaigns”. You can target within 1000 miles of a specific location. All you have to do is type in either the city, county, zip code, postal code to get location of your choice. The keyword selection also means you can target the words that you feel will be most used in your niche topic.

Keyword Searching: Tools like MarketMeSuite also allow you to do a simply generic keyword search rather than just a place and a specific niche. Keyword following is a tool that allows you to use our smart algorithm to suggest real people  -not automated bots, tweeting, or spammers – all based on the keyword and language you enter. This brings in all tweets from world wide so you can find a selection of people to follow and interact with. It’s always useful to be known in as many places as possible to get your business to expand. It is beneficial because you have 100% control over what you search for and who you interact with from the results. Whether you just tweet them or follow them, it’s a great way increasing your online presence and getting your product noticed by the masses!

The Importance Of Social Search is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Our offices will be closed on Monday January 2nd, and we will be back into the full swing of things on Tuesday Jan 03 to kick off another great year.

We at StepForth want to wish everyone a very safe and happy New Year!

Happy New Year! is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

A Google Places listing is claimed and filled out by your business. However,  in order to fully optimize your profile, you need to acquire reviews from your past customers.

As business owners, requesting reviews from satisfied customers is one of the best ways you can establish trust with those interested in pursuing your business. Why is that?  Because it’s not just your business telling a potential customer how great you are and what wonderful things you can do for them.  External sources happy with your business create authority, believability, and a sense of security that you are in fact what you say you are.  Google Places reviews are authenticated because the person leaving it actually needs to be signed into their own Google account (giving it that much more clout with Google).  The following are a few tips when prompting clients to leave you reviews on Google Places.

Make it Easy

Often people do want to spread the word about how great your business is but don’t want to be hassled much to do so. If you lay out the steps of HOW to submit a testimonial in a clear and concise manner, it becomes obvious it won’t take much time and you’ve eliminated the possibility of them having to research how to go about doing it.

Here are the steps that you can pass along to your customers to enter a testimonial for your business:

• Go to Google
• Click on “Maps”
• Type in the business name and location indicator (eg. StepForth Web Marketing, Victoria BC)
• Click on the correct business
• Click “Write a Review”
• Log in using your Gmail account
• Choose the amount of stars, fill in the testimonial and click “Publish.”

Make it Clear what you want Included in the Testimonial

Ask the testimonial provider to include specifics within the testimonial. A “they did a great job” isn’t very valuable to someone interested in your services. Get them to write about details such as: customer service experience, timeliness of work completed, above and beyond moments, etc… Making light suggestions of details to include will often be appreciated.

Make sure the Timing is Right

If you are working with someone over a long period of time, ask them during that first “we like this guy” moment in the beginning of the working relationship. If it’s a quick job, ask when it has just been completed.

Make sure you Thank the Testimonial Provider

Acquiring testimonials for your Google Places profile is a huge benefit to your business. Make sure those that are assisting you with this know their assistance is appreciated.

Why you want Google Places Testimonials and Tips for Getting Them is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Related query results refinements:

Sometimes we fetch results for queries that are similar to the actual search you type. This change makes it less likely that these results will rank highly if the original query had a rare word that was dropped in the alternate query. For example, if you are searching for [rare red widgets], you might not be as interested in a page that only mentions “red widgets.”

What this means to you: theoretically this improvement in search quality would minimize unqualified traffic to your website if you happen to be getting some. For example, using the example above if you were selling “red widgets” but not “rare red widgets” (what the person searched for) then the traffic your site may received before this update would have had a high bounce rate or at least a nearly non-existent conversion rate. On the flip side, if you were making sales by selling users on another product while they searched for a competing product then your sales could be negatively impacted by this algorithm update.

More comprehensive indexing:

This change makes more long-tail documents available in our index, so they are more likely to rank for relevant queries.

What this means to you: this is excellent news for websites with a lot of quality content spanning their field of expertise. Why? Because such sites often have detailed articles on the minutiae of their business/industry which can only be found within long tail searches (lesser searched phrases longer than a couple of words). With this update there should be a better incidence of other content on these sites to attract traffic. Furthermore, if you do not have a lot of content this is a great incentive to build additional content for your website so you can benefit from more longtail search traffic.

New “parked domain” classifier:

This is a new algorithm for automatically detecting parked domains. Parked domains are placeholder sites that are seldom useful and often filled with ads. They typically don’t have valuable content for our users, so in most cases we prefer not to show them.

What this means to you: this is one of the best pieces of news from this entire update! Google is saying we will see less and less search results from websites that are often only placeholders full of poorly written content and advertisements. So not only will your search experience improve but any reduction in garbage listings in the top Google search results will provide more opportunity for increased visibility… never a bad thing!!

More autocomplete predictions: 

With autocomplete, we try to strike a balance between coming up with flexible predictions and remaining true to your intentions. This change makes our prediction algorithm a little more flexible for certain queries, without losing your original intention.

What this means to you: at this point how this will effect search is unknown because determining just how slight the changes in autocomplete will change user results requires a lot of historical autocomplete results that I do not have. That said, if anything comes up that is report-able I will certainly follow-up with an addendum to this section.

Fresher and more complete blog search results: 

We made a change to our blog search index to get coverage that is both fresher and more comprehensive.

What this means to you: content writers with a regular stream of writing have yet more reason to rejoice as this update is meant to give their quality content more exposure; particularly fresh content. To take advantage of this enhancement you will need to make sure you keep a steady stream of writing – do not let your blog stale.

Original content: 

We added new signals to help us make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.

What this means to you: for anyone who writes quality content and gets annoyed when another website copies it and gets top rankings for it (even by legitimately reposting it – with credit) then you will appreciate any improvement in Google’s algorithm that furthers its ability to determine which site wrote the content first. You see, ideally, Google will give the link and ranking credit to the site that first wrote an article but the fact is if a larger, more trafficked website re-posts your article… they will get the bulk of the exposure.

Live results for Major League Soccer and the Canadian Football League: 

This change displays the latest scores & schedules from these leagues along with quick access to game recaps and box scores.

What this means to you: if you have a sports related website then this kind of increased sports information functionality on Google will, theoretically, capture the attention of more sports enthusiasts resulting in more sports-related searches which you can target in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. There is also the added indication that Google is focusing on enhancing the timeliness of its search data to become more of a resource for up-to-the-minute news which also increases user engagement and could increase (or at least firm-up) Google’s share of online search.

Image result freshness: 

We made a change to how we determine image freshness for news queries. This will help us find the freshest images more often.

What this means to you: Google is saying they are getting better at finding the latest images for news stories within Google News. From a search engine optimization (SEO) perspective this increases the importance of using descriptive keywords in the filenames of images and within ALT attributes on images placed in articles/blog posts on your website. The more accurate your image descriptive data is the more likely your photo/image could be used in the highly trafficked Google News.

Layout on tablets: 

We made some minor color and layout changes to improve usability on tablet devices.

What this means to you: this is a great reminder to crank up your mobile priorities to ensure your website is usable on mobile devices or at least has a mobile alternative. Here is handy post from Mashable with a list of 8 tools for easily creating a mobile version of your website. Note I do not necessarily recommend these products but they are a good start; ideally you would have a site professionally created just for mobile or your site would be adjusted to work for mobile.

Top result selection code rewrite: 

This code handles extra processing on the top set of results. For example, it ensures that we don’t show too many results from one site (“host crowding”). We rewrote the code to make it easier to understand, simpler to maintain and more flexible for future extensions.

What this means to you: I don’t know about you but I despise seeing any ranking where a single company takes the bulk of the top rankings edging out all competition. There are no reasons why such a thing should take place and I love that Google is keeping a close eye on this issue to minimize occasions where this happens. For you as a business owner this is great news as well since it means your competitors are not likely to achieve more than a single top ranking for a given keyphrase which gives you space to move up into the highest click areas (the top 5 rankings).

That is it for this month’s update from Google. Be sure to subscribe to our web marketing blog for a demystification of future Google Algorithm Updates or like us on Facebook to be notified of new content.

Dec 1st 2011 Google Algorithm Update Demystified is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

In short, the bulk of the navigation will now appear in a drop-down menu which will appear whenever you hover over the Google logo. The area which once had the toolbar will now be a static area for searching the specific Google application you are currently utilizing and to see any Google Plus notices as they arrive. Here is the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What do you think of this change-up? It is fairly significant but my take is I like the simplicity and usability of the change.

Google is Getting a Redesign is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

First consider what we know:

1. Google is taking into account the personal blocking data (the block site option in results) from users that have a long and trusted profile; confirmed by Matt Cutts in his September 21st Q&A (the first answer on the linked page).
2. Right now, if you have a highly trusted profile and you have authorship markup (rel=author) on your articles/copy you will get representation in Google search results – by having your photo show up next to the article.
3. In order for this markup to work you need to have a Google Profile and it must be correctly associated with the sites you write on and your author page on the site has to connect back (a few hoops are necessary) to your Google Profile to finalize the association.
4. Google is integrating Plus into most (if not all) of their products – this was confirmed by Vic Gundrota on a recent Web Summit 2.0 interview with him and Sergey Brin.
5. In order to be on Google Plus you have to have a Google Profile.
6. Your Google Profile prompts you to connect all of your social profiles so Google knows your social fingerprint and can highlight content in search results that your friends have socially shared/liked.
7. Links are an important part of Google’s algorithms but they are heavily gamed and likely cause the majority of spam found in Google’s results.
8. If Google sees that others like your content then it has a better chance of appearing at the top of relevant searches.

Next, let’s connect a few dots and make some educated assumptions:

1. If your content is shared extensively on social networks, especially Plus, and you have rel=”author” (AKA authorship markup), Google will credit your profile with more trust.
2. If someone links to your article or otherwise shares it, Google can see the authorship markup and will consider crediting your Google Profile – depending on the quality of person linking/sharing the article.
3. Links are a trust indicator and Google Profiles will be a trust indicator with a tougher signal to fake.
4. By creating content regularly that is highly shared and signed with your rel=”author” you will build greater trust for your Google Profile.
5. The more trust & credibility you have with Google, the better chance your content will have of appearing in the top search results.

My Conclusion
Build your Google Profile because there are many reasons to believe it will assist the ranking success of content you write and socially share. In order to build your profile you will want to give Google every reason to believe you are trustworthy and rel=”author” is one of the tools they have given you to do that. The sooner you get started, the longer your positive  Google Profile history will be and the more trust you can gain before your competitors wisen up.

Click on the above image for a much larger version.

Important Reminder: although many of these signals are already being noted by Google few of them have been integrated as of yet – at least officially. This article is based on educated speculation.

Questions? Post them in the comments or on the SEO 101 Facebook Page and I will address as many as possible on the next show which airs live at WebmasterRadio.FM on Halloween at 2pm PST / 5pm EST.

Why Having a Strong Google Profile Will Soon be Critical is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Also you can listen to some discussion on this Q&A on the Oct 3 2011 episode of SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM which I co-host with fellow SEO veteran John Carcutt; you can find the show on iTunes here.

The Prelude to the Google Q&A

Before he did the Q&A Matt wanted to cover a few points which I outline below along with direct links to the most pertinent section of the video where he explains each point; so you can hear it in his own words (and I don’t have to write them all down). After these points you will find his Q&A where my short-hand should give you the answers you need; if not you always have the video!

Pagination: Matt mentions the use of rel=next and rel=previous to aid in the improved indexation of paginated pages. This is not a light topic so he understandably does not get into great detail but watch Matt’s short explanation on pagination here.

Reconsideration Requests: Matt discusses an article by Tiffany Oberoi and Michael Wyszomierski from the Google Search Quality Team called “Reconsideration requests get more transparent“. As the title aptly describes the Google will now be much more open about whether your site has been penalized or not should you submit a reconsideration request. Here is Matt’s description of the changes to reconsideration in his own words.

Requests for Crazy Ideas: if you have “crazy ideas” for how to search which Google has not done they invite you to add your ideas on Matt’s blog where he posted a request for those ideas recently: What cool new websearch ideas should Google launch in 2012? 

Matt Cutts Answers Google Questions

NOTE: each of the linked titles below will take you directly to the relevant segment of the video – in case you want to hear it from Matt directly. Otherwise I have done my best to paraphrase his answers; a shorter version of the actual transcription.

Do +1′s have any affect on search rankings?

“Right now we are still studying it” Matt says. He  then notes they are using the “block” data in search results (they rolled this into the Panda update) but only if they are coming from clearly trustworthy individuals; those with a strong history in Google’s records. In terms of the +1′s they are still looking into the affect they can have and “its definitely promising, and we’re excited about it and we hope to find a good way to use that” but he stresses it is not something they want to implement it just because they can.

Will you ever count negative meta keywords? I want a “-free” on my site.

Google doesn’t really have a way to ensure your site does not show up for a particular word. Why? Well, there is no easy way to do this, he explains, because “in theory that could be a way you could silence critics or not show up for negative stuff.” He goes on to say they don’t want to deny the benefit of opposing viewpoints in their results which this could negatively affect.

Why isn’t my authorship markup showing in search results?

Matt recommends visiting the Google Webmaster Forum and asking that question so someone can look into it. He also hints at there being a form of filter which will not allow just anyone to show up because it is suppose to be a positive indicator in results vs a negative; in other words spammers could (and in my opinion would) abuse this if it were wide open.

Should I create a native application or a mobile web site to work with all of the mobile platforms out there? (the original question was just “Native app vs Mobile web”)

Matt found this to be a tough question because native apps can offer a more fluid experience but it can also be overwhelming with the myriad of platforms to create apps for. He says, however, that HTML 5 shows a lot of promise. In fact, he says a lot of people are creating their product in HTML 5 and when they run into special functions which are better in an app format they will then go that route.

Will Google Plus allow me to customize my profile?

Good suggestion, he answers, but he has no idea but he would suggest that since the Google Plus team is implementing changes quite quickly.

When can we expect Google Flights to be activated outside of the USA?

It is too soon to tell since the feature has only just been implemented and the Google Flights team is still working on the implementation. For example, they are still lacking specific functionality that is needed to perfect the US implementation such as being able to search for first class flights or other such custom search options. When these features are worked out he expects they will roll it out quite quickly.

How will the +1 on advertisements affect SEO?

They won’t have any affect on SEO. The +1 on ads will show others who have +1′d it but that is all.

Have you noticed the quality of technical search results has gotten poorer since the Panda update?

“I think Panda would be independent of whether any of those sorts of technical queries have gotten worse.” That said, he explains if you have some way to show a past and present version of search to show how it has degraded they are very interested.

What do you like better… Facebook or Google Plus?

Matt chuckles and states he shut down his Facebook account a while ago so he no longer uses it. That said, he has enjoyed what he has used of Google Plus in particular the Hangouts and the benefits of the API.

Will the age of a domain make a difference in how well it shows up in search engine rankings?

He does have his name on a patent which refers to using the age of anchors and domains to assist with finding higher quality content. That said, he wouldn’t advise going overboard on that. You still need fresh information because old information can get really stale, so they do qualify whether the search query deserves a higher level of freshness. He also states that older, more established domains may have a lot more links pointing to them which can increase the illusion that domain age is more important than it actually is.

When are the next round of Panda Updates expected? (original q: when is Panda 2.5 / 3.0 going to run?)

Matt first states he does not want to get into what number the update is since it is now a rolling update; it is being updated on a regular basis like all Google algorithm tweaks. He then mentions an article by Google’s Amit Singhal which lists ways to increase the quality of your website to avoid Panda Penalties (“More guidance on building high quality sites“). Further to that he discusses one element which is the number of advertisements you have on a page and above the fold; too many and your site/page is likely to be negatively affected (even though he confusingly says it is not a signal Panda is watching). After all, Google is all about search experience and they do not want to send traffic to sites that oversaturate their content with advertisements. At any rate, Matt states the volume and placement of advertisements is a signal they are watching.

When will Google Plus be available for Google Apps users??

Matt doesn’t know but he does know they are working on it and that it is “certainly a priority”.

Why was the Panda Update called Panda?

Matt explains there is an engineer at Google named Panda who it was named after.

What is the recommended priority value when you submit your XML sitemap to Google?

“If you say everything is a high priority then we might not take that as seriously.” But if the bulk of pages listed are of a normal priority and a few things are of a higher priority it will have a greater chance of having an affect. That said, he suggests not spending too much time on this if you have a blog or a content management system because you can use Ping systems to tell Google when pages are new.

Why did Google rank my website without a snippet even though my Meta Description was high quality?

Google will only use the Meta Description if it is appropriate for the term searched or perceived search intention. As a result, there are some occasions where Google will write its own description for a ranked page to provide insight into why it was ranked for the particular query.

What is the impact of Googlebot finding an extremely high number of pages at once on a site?

This is not immediately anything to worry about, however, it could be your site has canonicalization issues whereby using the Canonical Tag on specific pages would consolidate the PR onto the best pages. It could also be your site has a spider trap where the search engine spider is finding infinite loops of the same data which results in a great deal of spider activity leading to little benefit for Google or your website.

I am unfamiliar with the term “Hangouts” can you define that term and give an example?

Hangouts are a Google Plus feature which, up until yesterday, only allowed 10 people to connect on a single group discussion with video. Recently, however, Google changed Hangouts to allow an unlimited amount of people to connect in the chat area of this hangout and participate (without video). This has expanded the use of Hangouts greatly to allow one-on-one interaction with celebrities.

How should e-commerce websites handle rel=author?

In Matt’s opinion rel=author is good on any website with unique content because it allows Google to begin to build trust with the author and identify the author to searchers. He ends by saying he sees absolutely no downside to using the rel=author for any website and “overtime it may even have an impact on our search results.”

Will rel=author be compatible with business Google Plus?

He doesn’t know exactly how it will interact with rel=author and thinks they should “mostly be separate.”

Can you schedules these Q&A’s weekly like a Matt Cutts podcast?

He would love to do this a lot more frequently and feels if  he can continue to do these and have them not too stressful then it would be more manageable. He notes he misses Danny Sullivan’s old daily searchcast and maybe he could have some fun and do a show or two with Danny or Bryan White… he will see how it goes.

How can I ensure a website stealing my content won’t get away with it?

Do a DMCA complaint. Do a spam report; especially if they are an actual spammer who is scraping content completely. Also, when you publish content be sure to be the website that PINGs Google first (see earlier note about PUBSUBHUBUB and other Google-sanctioned Ping services to let Google and other sites know when you have published the content. This will increase your odds of being considered the original publisher of a piece of content.

– from a later followup to the above scraper question where someone wanted more info on the Ping applications to use: Ping-o-Matic is built into WordPress and Feedburner users (a Google product) also pings Google and other sources upon posting new content. He also mentioned PUBSUBHUBBUB again and described its process.

Are double 301 redirects okay?

Yes, no problem. Anything more than 4 and you will definitely not have a good result. Also, make sure that chained 301 redirects are only 301s and not inter-mixed with 302 redirects.

Where is the Orkut?

Matt laughed and admitted they have a history of naming things after engineers and said he actually knows there is a programmer at Google called Orkut and has seen him around. Then he states that Orkut.com (another social network that Google owns) is on the way out but continues to be quite popular in Brazil and to a lesser degree in India. He ended the answer vaguely stating he thinks it is fantastic it is still being enjoyed… but he states nothing about what will happen to it (anytime soon).

When is Google going to update PageRanks again?

“In general it is every 3 or 4 months.” He says Google literally has a script that automatically runs every 3 or 4 months to update the PageRank that the public sees. That said, the calculations and the human aspect (where they ensure links flagged as purchased are not counted) that make up PageRank are constantly running and updated.

When will there be a rel=author for the news industry? Why isn’t there one offered now?

You can use rel-author in the news industry. In fact, the New York Times has already implemented rel=author and he expects other organizations to follow suit – if they have not already. He states it is natural for Google to want the news industry to do well because it helps people spend more time online, use search (i.e. Google) more and want to come back and use it again. He said the news organizations are talking about other options with Google as well but there is no certainty when they will be released.

How can I get an internship at Google?

Go to http://www.google.com/jobs/ and apply there around January when the Summer internship discovery process begins.

Does “Unavailable after” robots tag remove a page completely from the index so you don’t have a problem with a 404 error?

“I don’t know.” He is sure there is an option to remove a page cache after a certain period of time using a tag but he isn’t certain of the tag used to do that.

Should I buy my company’s brand on a new top-level domain to secure it?

He says this is a complex question with a few layers to the answer and he will try to do a full video on this. In general, Google tries to find and deliver the best content regardless of where it is found. He followed this with stating his prior position was that Google didn’t behave different no matter the TLD used, however, that is not quite as true now. He states it is a more of a nuanced situation now, where if a particular TLD is often spammy it could affect how your search results rank if you are using that TLD.  Ultimately, whether you buy your company name under a new TLD is up to you but Google will have to see how each of the new registrars respect copyright/trademarks before he can reliably state they are safe to buy for the long term. He finishes up by restating that Google’s mandate is to show good content no matter the domain.

Does Google identify automatic page redirection with JavaScript?

Google does try to do that, in fact he has noticed a few Russian spammers using JavaScript redirects thinking they would fly under Google’s radar – well they didn’t. Matt Cutts states Google’s algorithms are getting smarter by the day and he goes on to request that no one block their CSS and JavaScript files to help with user experience.

From here on the show just gets fun and ties up with a few humorous stories and a Movember promise!

>> Matt takes a fun break to, on request, show the cool Android cookie jar shown in the background of his video. He then talks about his Porn Cookies and what they mean – this is some really funny Google history well worth listening to (this one is the best)

Will you be growing a moustache for Movember?

YES!

How will Matt Cutts look with a moustache? Well I just had to find out (here is a link if the photo doesn’t show up)

With pleasure,
Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
Increasing the bottom line online for businesses since 1997 
Connect with me on Google Plus!

Google Questions & Answers from Matt Cutts Live Q&A – Sept 2011 is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

What will this do for My AdWords Account?

As long as you have been using relevant and quality destination URLs for your display ads, you should have nothing to worry about regarding your paid search account. Google says that relevant landing pages may even see a ‘strong boost’ when it comes to your display ads quality score.

As these changes roll out over the next little while some accounts may see some fluctuation in their quality scores. While things stabilize after a couple weeks most accounts will not see a significant change in the overall performance of their account.  Now those with poor non relevant destination URLs will see either traffic deceases and/or their cost per click go up significantly.

Why Would Google Make These Changes to the Algorithm?

The main purpose of this algorithm change is to provide the people who click on AdWords ads, more relevant information. It appears that Google is going after those accounts that are not 100% relevant in the ads that they are displaying. Those accounts that have display ads with semi relevant destination URLs will have their quality scores go down so that if they still want their ads displayed it will cost them more.

Some people have expressed concern about these new changes, but we here at StepForth feel that our clients will benefit from these algorithm changes. We always use the most relevant destination URLs for our client’s AdWords accounts to make the account as productive as possible.

For more information you can check the AdWords Blogspot post about these algorithm changes here: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/ads-quality-improvements-rolling-out.html

Please take some time to contact StepForth to inquire about their paid search services using Google AdWords. We have created and maintained many different account styles in a many different industries for our clients, and can do the same for you.

Quality Score is now worth So Much More is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.

Google Analytics is one of the best web statistical programs available on the net, and the best part about it is that it’s free to use. Google Analytics has been around for years now and has seen many changes in its lifetime. In the last few months the Dashboard of your analytics account has had an upgrade to a new version which many people are very excited about. Google is up to it again with another major update to their Analytics program offering Real Time analytics data about your site.

How is Google Analytics Changing?

In the past the data you could see was only for past performance of your website whereas you could try to click on the current day to view your statistics but all fields would yield zeros. Now you do have the option to see your statistics in Real Time, which is great for testing new campaigns, watching a new source of traffic, troubleshooting your site, etc.

Real Time Analytics offers Better Campaign Management

Let’s say you were trying to setup special URLs using the Google Analytics URL Builder, and you wanted to see how the data would appear in your account. Well in the past this was not possible because the data would not be present until the next day, and now that is all changing. With Real Time data you can troubleshoot your UTM tracking codes to make sure they are setup the way you wanted.

Having Real Time analytics data is a great tool for troubleshooting some issues with your site. For instance, you would be able to notice any downtime right away when looking in your Analytics account as opposed to before where you wouldn’t see this until the next day. The same applies for those involved with search engine optimization, whereas if you see a rise in your rankings for a specific keyword, now you are able to see the resulting search traffic statistics in Real Time.

Do you want help with your analytics? StepForth offers a one time or monthly website analytics service that analyzes your Google Analytics account and reports on any findings that would help the performance of your site. Please take the time to contact us to see what one of our Google Analytics professionals can do to help the productivity of your site.

How Well is Your Website Performing? is a post from: StepForth Web Marketing Inc.