Because of the enormous amount of news last week we skipped one Friday Talk to come back with a bang. Today you can bookmark this page and safe it to take an hour and twenty minutes somewhere this weekend to sit back and listen to Andrew Hogue who now heads up search at FourSquare, but who at the time of this presentation last year was working for Google on Google Squared. He discusses entities and will give you an insight in what we can expect the next few years. Enlightening!
State of Search
Google keeps Pushing: Your New Google Account is Automatically your G+ Account
In the past you could sign up for a Gmail account and that would be it. If you wanted a YouTube or Picasa account you could connect your Gmail to it, but you had to sign up independently for it. The same for your G+ account when Google first launched the service: even though they were connected you had to ‘sign up’ first.
Now if you decide to get a Gmail account you won’t have to sign up separately for all the other services anymore. Your Google Account is now also your Google+ account, your YouTube account and other Google products.
If you now go to the Google sign up page you will see that Google has redesigned the page and that they focus on the entire Google experience: “Your Google Account is more than just Search.” (more…)
A World Without Wikipedia
Earlier this week part of the internet community went black in a protest against SOPA (I hope you did your SEO when participating?), an act which might become an actual Bill in the US and which will then affect the entire web community.
One of the sites which went black was Wikipedia. For some that was a blessing in disguise, for others it was an indication of what they would actually miss if the sites would black out anyway. This infographic, created by Greg Voakes, shows what the world would look like without Wikipedia. Would you miss it..? (more…)
Google Decides Where You Should Put Your Ads, But What About Their Own Pages?
Who owns your website? On paper it is you. Because you are the one who is putting the content on your pages. In a perfect world you would however focus on your target audience and would fit the page so they would find what they are looking for within a micro second. In reality it is neither you or your customers who decide what goes where. It is companies like Google and Facebook who in the end make the decisions.
Google just made another decision for you. In a post on their Inside Search Blog Google announces an algorithmic change which makes Google one of the important deciders when it comes to what you put where on your site. Google’s newest change punishes those sites that have too many ads ‘above the fold’. At the same time they don’t seem to live up to their own rules. (more…)
Tools To Optimize Your Site with Bryan Eisenberg
Last year at SMX Stockholm we talked to Bryan Eisenberg who had just launched his new website “Websitetestingtools – The Online Marketers Toolbox”. The website came forth from personal interest, it doesn’t have a commercial purpose.
On the site he calls himself a ‘marketing tool junkie’, and with reason, because he has highlighted over a hundred tools on the site and plans to highlight several more. He describes them, rates them and categorizes them. A great resource.
In cooperation with Bryan we will now be highlighting several tools which he has ‘reviewed’ on his site every month. And we will ask you to give Bryan some tips on tools he should add to his site and off course we want your opinion on the tools! So today we start with some random tools from the site which might be handy for you to use! (more…)
Almost 1 in 2 Europeans Visit Newspaper Sites
The Internet is supposed to be the ‘death’ of the newspapers. Who will buy one in a few years, once it gets printed it is after all, not news anymore.
Newspapers are looking to find different ways to get their business back on track and the Internet is the best place to do that. Comscore numbers show that newspapers are still popular, but then mostly online. Half of Europe’s internet population visits newspaper websites.
The numbers from Comscore show that people still trust newspapers as an’authority’. They might see news on social media first, but they still go to newspaper websites to read more about the specific topics. (more…)
What’s This “SOPA” All About?
So you’ve been hearing a lot about SOPA, is the interweb turning black today? And why? And what does that mean for me? A lot of questions if you have no idea. And since going to Wikipedia is not an option today, because they did turn black you have no clue.
That is why we decided to publish not one but two infographics. In one post, don’t worry you infographic-haters out there 
. One will give you a quick overview of what SOPA is, the other one looks at the implications of SOPA when it comes to business. (more…)
State of Search radioshow – episode 80: TopSEOs, Google in Kenya and Search Plus Your World
In this episode Bas and Roy discuss how to look at the latest “TopSEOs” dispute and they talk about how Google keeps getting themselves into trouble this year. And off course Search Plus Your World is being looked at.
You can listen to the show below.
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Participating in the SOPA Black Out? Don’t Forget to SEO
This Wednesday many sites around the web will turn black. This as a protest to plans in the US called the Stop Online Piracy Act. Even though the White House is said not to support SOPA this bill might just become a law, which would be disastrous for the online industry. It is supposed to protect the intellectual properties online, but it can also be seen as possible Internet censorship. Therefore some of the big players, like Wikipedia and Reddit, on the web will turn black on Wednesday, to make a statement.
Maybe you are making that same statement. If so, you need to think of a few things. What many sites don’t realize is that “blacking out your site” might just harm your rankings in Google. Google after all doesn’t stop crawling and if they can’t find your site or do find it but won’t find anything ‘but black’ just when you are joining in on the protest, you might just lose your rankings.
Luckily Google has Pierre Far. This Googler, who is speaking at the next Thinkvisibility by the way, is not only a nice guy if you meet him in person, he thinks along with webmasters. So he decided to post some helpful tips for webmasters who plan to participate in the blackout on his Google+ Profile. (more…)
New Allegations: Is Google Trying to Kill Themselves?
Back in 2009 I was on a panel at SMX London. At the end of the session, during the Q&A we were asked the question who we believed would be the ‘Google Killer’. My answer back then was “The only one who can kill Google, is Google itself”. If you look at the start of 2012 you might think Google is doing just that.
Within two weeks time Google has been hit a few times, which Barry describes nicely on his personal blog. After Manipulating +1 Upvotes, link buying for Chrome and last weeks allegations in Kenya Google now again faces allegations. This time they are accused of ‘vandalizing Open Street Map’. (more…)
Google Testing Out “Sesame Open”, But Working On Something Better
Do you not trust public computers with your passwords, because maybe, just maybe a keylogger might be installed which records your password? Well help might be under way. Google is testing a new way of login: QR Codes. But that is just the start. Google says they are already working on ‘something better’.
If you go to Google’s special page on this: https://accounts.google.com/sesame you will see a QR Code. You can scan this barcode with your phone which will then take you to a website using your mobile browser. Google will then prompt you to type in your password and will ask for confirmation you do want to login. Once confirmed, your desktop browser will receive notice from Google that you are good to go and open a Gmail session for you. (more…)
What Would Google Bot Do?
When building or optimizing a website you have to keep in mind you need to do things so the website can be found in search engines pretty well. Therefore you have to ‘obey’ to the rules of Google. And since Google sends its bots around to find what site is relevant it might be a good idea to consider ‘what would the Google Bot do?’ when optimizing a site. (more…)
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