Negative SEO, ranking your competitors for ‘bad’ keywords or for example badmouthing competitors or trying to give your site ‘bad links’ so you are less visible to Google, has been talked about a lot in the past few years. With Google’s disavow tool that Google recently launched fighting against negative SEO became easier. Matt Cutts explains that in his latest Webmastertools video. About Negative SEO.
State of Search
Posts About ‘Google’
The Biggest Surprise for Matt Cutts and his Team? Falling for Scam
The year is closing and that means people are looking back on the year. As does the Google Webspam Team. In his latest webmastertools video Matt Cutts answers a question about 2012: What has been the biggest surprise of 2012 for you and your spam team?
The answer? Falling for scam:
The Growing (not provided) Problem and Why Google Will Act in 2013
Perhaps my boldest prediction for 2013 is that Google will likely be forced to take action over (not provided) and whether or not they opt to pass keyword referrer data from SSL search. My view is that with the percentage of users searching via SSL by default growing consistently (through default adoption by browsers, operating systems, etc.) they will find themselves in a situation whereby either their Premium Analytics product is no longer viable or they will be forced to pass keyword data for organic search referrers the same way they still do for paid.
There are a number of options for how they could address this problem. Below I have outlined the most probable approaches they could take and any risks they may have to take in so doing. With all the buzz going around twitter about the fact that Chrome will be switching to SSL search by default it seemed like a good time to share these thoughts. (more…)
Some Google Fun on Google+
Google gives us a lot of headaches when it comes to business, but through the years they have also given us a lot of things to smile or even laugh about. April fools jokes, Easter Eggs, you name it.
Since the end of the year is approaching we figured it would be fun to look back at some fun things Google did in the past like those Easter Eggs and April fools jokes. Every day until the end of the year we will share one on our Google+ page. On this page we will collect them all. All jokes are collected by our specialist on this area: Michel Wester. (more…)
How can I make the pages on my site unique?
Once in a while we post a video of Matt Cutts answering a question from a webmaster. Most of the time it is because the question or the answer is remarkable. In this case it is a remarkable question, one where even Matt Cutts has to groan about…
Have Google lost sight of their mission statement?
The Google-push to punish ranking-data scraping will develop search and web content into a completely wrong direction.
The synergies of a combined strategy for SEO and PPC are well known, well documented, and to my knowledge, used by most (good) search-agencies. Even Google use it in their work to promote AdWords. To quickly summarize: Top listing organic + Top listing paid = more than twice the (relevant) traffic and visibility than if both were alone in the SERPS = great customer value. In addition to this, brands that take up more space in the SERPS are trusted more among searchers than others. All in all, SEARCH synergy gives Google what they claim they are looking for: better content, better websites, more value to their users, and more money back to both customer and Google.
Agencies and companies working towards giving their (potential) customers the best possible web content, work with search as a whole. They see what PPC and SEO can do together to make the user experience, the websites, the content and the campaigns even better. In this work, content optimisation is extremely important, and is often put under the SEO umbrella: (more…)
State of Search News Update: What happened in week 50
A lot is happening in the world of search and social and as you know State of Search is not a news-reporting site but a site that interprets the news and looks at why something is happening and what that means to you. That doesn’t mean however we are not interested in the news. In this post we will bring the top stories of what happened last week with links to articles around the web. So you will know what you’ve missed. (more…)
Google Makes Structured Data easy with Data Highlighter
Rich snippets are becoming extremely important in the SERPS these days, some might even argue they are more important than rankings. Because they make you stand out. Whether it’s video, reviews or just the text you want highlighted, everything you can do, you should do.
When it comes to event calendars Google has just made the life of a webmaster a whole lot easier by introducing Data Highlighter for event data which will allow even the most a technical webmasters to mark up structured data about events (think concerts, conferences or festivals). Without touching html. (more…)
Google+ Hangout about Rankings and Data with Raven Tools
When last week Raventools announced it would be dropping rankings and other scraped data in January the first responses were disbelieve, but when thoughts settled a bit SEO’s around the world started thinking about the reasons why and the consequences. Because they can be big, not just for Raven Tools.
In this hangout Bas van den Beld talks to Jon Henshaw of Raven Tools about the reasons why and the consequences of their move.
Some of the things discussed were: (more…)
State of Search News Update: What happened in week 49
A lot is happening in the world of search and social and as you know State of Search is not a news-reporting site but a site that interprets the news and looks at why something is happening and what that means to you. That doesn’t mean however we are not interested in the news. In this post we will bring the top stories of what happened last week with links to articles around the web. So you will know what you’ve missed. (more…)
Eric Schmidt to Publish Book on how Internet is Changing Society
Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, now executive chairman, is going to publish a book. Knopf Publishers today announced the book, which will be written by Schmidt and co-author Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas. The publishing date will be April 23rd.
Schmidt’s and Cohen’s book will be about the future of technology and will be called “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business”.
How Google Hires
Have you ever had the idea of working for Google? You might have some fun because there are smart people working there and off course there are great benefits like the offices you get to work in or the great lunches you can get there.
But ‘getting into Google’ might not be all too easy if you hear (ex-)Googlers talk about the hiring process. The Wall Street Journal talked to Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, on how Google looks at hiring. Take a look below. By the way, did you know Google Europe is hiring..?
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