Google, Yahoo and Live search have introduced a great new way to serve linkers different content than other visitors or search engines. Thanks to the rel=canonical tag the search engines are now supporting they will need to implement many new spam detection methods as well.
If you do not yet know about the tag please read Rand Fishkin’s rel=canonical post or the information from Google on the new canonical tag.
Archive for the ‘Algorithms’ Category
Canonical tag creates new legal cloaking possibilities
Thursday, December 25th, 2008At last Google shows search volumes!!
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008I haven’t read many blogs lately so much to my surprise I opened up my Adwords account and saw the message:
You can now view keyword volume estimates in the Adwords keyword tool!
So far Google has never been “close to” open about search volumes. Google trends only shows charts without numbers and it has a threshold of about 1000 searches per day. Previously the Adwords keyword tool showed only monthly graphs without any reference field to numbers. But at last they changed their ways and show “rough estimates” with real numbers.
Importance of avoiding duplicate content
Monday, February 4th, 2008Getting indexed and ranking with slightly less unique content!
Many webmasters have contacted me recently with the same problem. It’s an old problem that is still very important in all search engines. Their websites weren’t indexed entirely or perticular pages couldn’t even rank for the most unique text phrases although these pages were indexed. In this post I will give some pointers on effortlessly making pages more unique.
Personalized search is gaining effect
Monday, August 27th, 2007Untill now personalized search results where hard to unravel. The effect was minimal (in most cases) and we had only one identity to test with. But personalized search is gaining effect and for Google the results look promising enough to continue with further personalization. So what does this mean for search engine optimization? This article will shed a light on what is known about the personalized search algorithm and how it effects peoples behavior.
Don't leave your fingerprints everywhere!
Saturday, June 16th, 2007The Google algorithm changes slightly every day. Most of their very small algorithm changes are implemented to look for new signs of SEO spam. Most of the times when a new spam tactic is detected, it is verified manually and its characteristics are then fed to the algorithm. Google spamcops can also roundup all your spam manually aided by cool Google tools for internal use. So: “Don’t leave your fingerprints everywhere!” When one of your projects is caught, sacrifice it and save everything else you’ve build. (I type with my fingers, so I won’t call them footprints)
Search Verticals with Google Universal
Thursday, May 24th, 2007Yeah! Google is giving easily spamable results more exposure in their search results. Untill now it wasn’t worth the hassle to optimize video, images, news, local or books. But thanks to Google Universal Search this content will start showing up in the normal results. How to optimize these types of content for search is still unknown to many SEOs, so be one of the first to know and make it your specialty. In this article I will focus on image search.
Google has crossed the line
Monday, April 16th, 2007So far Google was all about reading what normal users could read. If you made your website accessible to all visitors (including visually impaired), you had a perfect site for Google. Every guideline in the Webmaster guidelines has always been focussed on making a good website for users and forgetting about (spamming) search engines.
But now Google wants us to do the complete opposite. If links are extremely relevant to your users, but not contextual enough to search engines, you need to nofollow them or completely remove them to be able to score. Matt Cutts has written a few blog posts on nofollowing paid links.
What will they think of next? From now on you have to make your website for search engines and hope that it is ok for your visitors?!
Up-to-date SEO knowledge
Saturday, March 17th, 2007How up-to-date does your SEO knowledge need to be?
I frequently talk to people that aren’t convinced that they need to keep their SEO knowledge up-to-date. “Old whitehat knowledge works just fine!” is what they say. And in some cases I think they have a point. Most SEOs don’t need to read all the SEO news everyday. But what changes do you need to check on a regular basis?
SEA requires SEO
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007There is a good development in SEA. Landing page relevance is becoming more and more important for your ads! This means you can save more then half your advertising budget or get double the clicks, just by knowing both SEO and SEA. In this article I will give some information to influence the Quality score in Google.
The optimum keyword density
Friday, December 29th, 2006Some years ago search engine optimization was mainly about using the right keyword densities in the text of your website. Nowadays it seems to have lost much of its importance. But isn’t it important anymore? In this article I will give my opinion and maybe we can get a discussion going on what you think.