What if My Competitor Buys Spam Links to My Website?

This question has been very often discussed. Yet, we are getting back to it again and again. Let’s try to crear up some confusions?

Here’s what makes us discuss that questions again: Whiteboard Friday from SEOmoz. The question is simple: how Google finds out that a website is building spam links?

Incoming links are not under your control, there is no simple way you can stop your website from getting links back from spammy websites. So what if my competitor buys 100s of spammy links and then points them to my website? Will Google pull my website down like JC Penney and others?

So, is there any way to remove the links from those sites? Is there any penalty for those who are involved in these kinds of unethical activities to pull down the competitor?

Track Your Incoming Links
Gary-Adam Shannon has a wonderful post about this; let me share some important points from the post:

Adam recommends two tools to be alerted of new backlinks: The Google Alert and Link Monitoring Service.

• Set the Google Alert for your website name so you will get notifications as soon as your brand is mentioned anywhere online.
• Majestic SEO (in my opinion) is the best tool for Link Monitoring. Majestic can give you a daily break down on new links and you can use their graphing systems to see link spikes.

Ok, let’s move on… now I know how to get alerts when any SPAM website is linked to me, but what are the preventives once I am under attack? Let’s suppose I come to know that there are some SPAM websites who are linking to my website and this is not natural, it clearly seems like somebody has done some link buying in against of my website, the graph shows something like this:

So What Do I Do If I Suspect I am Being Spam-Linked?


Do I have to email Google or something like that? What should I do? Keeping this situation in mind, I broke down the situation into three questions:

I emailed the same questions to one of the most creative link builders Wiep Knol. Here’s his reply:

Google’s Matt Cutts has repeatedly mentioned that they will try to prevent this as much as they can. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible, but it would be very difficult for aged domains. New domains are easier to burn with spammy links.

In most cases, Google will simply devalue the paid or spammy links, instead of penalizing the buyer. In some cases, either the link seller or the link buyers will get a penalty, but this is quite rare if you compare it to the amount of sites that sells and/or buys links.

And since it would be *really* difficult to determine which competitor has been buying links for website A, I don’t think competitor B has much risk, apart from bad press when things do come out.

Conclusion:
There is no simple way Google can track who is actually buying the links?

So, what I can do? First, don’t get obessed. In reality this kind of situation is very rare. People would hardly do this kind of investment as you can never be sure if and how it will work. Will it pull you down in SERPs? Will it be ignored? Will it result in wasted money?

Al you can do is to maintain a clear natural link building profile. Nothing is earned as hard and works as good as a crystal clear reputation!

Read more: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-if-my-competitor-buys-spam-links-to-my-website/28786/

10 Tips to Improve Your SEO Using Twitter

Google and Bing are constantly working on integrating the social and search results. Social media becoming the voice of the people cannot be ignored or neglected.

Twitter is the most popular micro blogging platform as of today .Twitter is a large network and has the potential to supplement your SEO activities . If the tweets from your account are focused and topical then it surely helps you to establish your online reputation and build a brand online. But, on the contrary, vague tweets do not have any SEO benefit and it is just a sheer waste of time and energy.

Below are some tips that you may consider while tweeting which will help in your SEO campaign.

1. Brand Name

Your brand name or username should reflect your site name or offered services as this is what will be mentioned and displayed as your network, re-tweeted your posts. The more re-tweets your post’s get, the higher its significance.

2. Profile / Bio

As a point of reference, put your website link on your profile page. The bio content is the information part of your Twitter. Maximize it and make it relevant to your website, and the link that you display on your twitter profile, point it to a relevant page that will help with your conversions, rather than just pointing it back to your websites home page.

3. Links

Since Google is now displaying tweets in SERPs, despite nofollow, putting your links on your posts will aid your link building activities or has the potential of giving a wider web presence. Also, accompany your links with effective keywords. You can post your links several times or in interval in order to maximize possible keywords and contents, and exposure.

4. Hash Tags

Hash Tags is a Twitter feature that works like a Meta data for your tweets. These are posts with “#” symbol like “#web” and “#development”. Hash Tags help organize tweets and determine the trending information in Twitter.

5. Mentions

If you to mention users in Twitter you need to put a “@” symbol before their usernames. It is like a retweet effect and the more your account is retweeted, the higher your relevance. It is like voting policy. Hence, whenever you tweet, or Re-Tweet other users ensure to use the @symbol before their username.

6. Be a Help to Others

Re-tweeting, other relevant posts especially those that are of the same niche with yours will help you build your brand and promote your services. Posting everything coming from your site may somehow looks like a spam. Also, as you retweet, you have been a help to others too, by giving your followers a good choice of links to view.

7. Tweet Interval

Do not post bulk of tweets at once as this will annoy your followers, clogging up their stream, but instead spread your tweets out over the day with a decent interval, I would suggest of about an hour or two interval is good.

8. Blog Site

Promoting a blog site like your corporate one is a good option too. Blog sites can provide more information to your visitors and is the best place to interact with them, help them, know their thoughts, allow them to share your articles and contribute contents via comments, and also giving them the option to Re-Tweet your articles.

9. Twitter Button

Twitter button is now a requirement to many websites. It is a great aid to share pages easier.

10. Build your online brand

An effective Twitter account does not just help in your SEO, but will build your online brand, and increase visibility of your company and brand, by building new connections.

Last but not the least, determine a purpose for your Twitter presence. Do you want to focus on customer support or share information about your products and services or would you like to engage with your potential customers or would just like to converse with people from your own industry, etc. Only when you have a purpose you will get a direction and only then it is possible to monitor and measure the success, else it becomes a vehicle without a driver and no destination.

Optimizing your twitter account is optimizing your search engine visibility too. By managing it well, you will have a higher chance to create a bigger network, connect more to people and gain the exposure you need.

Read more: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-tips-improve-your-seo-using-twitter/28790

Google Panda Coming to a Market Near You

If you live outside the United States and were unscathed by the Panda Update, a world of hurt may await soon. Or you may be in for a pleasant surprise. It is hard to say where the chips may lay for you without looking.

Some people just had their businesses destroyed, whereas the Online Publisher Association sees a $1 billion windfall to the winning publishers.

Due to Google having multiple algorithms running right now, you can get a peak at the types of sites that were hit, and if your site is in English you can see if it would have got hit by comparing your Google.com rankings in the United States versus in foreign markets by using the Google AdWords ad preview tool.

In most foreign markets Google is not likely to be as aggressive with this type of algorithm as they are in the United States (because foreign ad markets are less liquid and there is less of a critical mass of content in some foreign markets), but I would be willing to bet that Google will be pretty aggressive with it in the UK when it rolls out.

The keywords where you will see the most significant ranking changes will be those where there is a lot of competition, as keywords with less competition generally do not have as many sites to replace them when they are whacked (since there were less people competing for the keyword). Another way to get a glimpse of the aggregate data is to look at your Google Analytics search traffic from the US and see how it has changed relative to seasonal norms. Here is a look out below example, highlighting how Google traffic dropped. ;)

What is worse, is that on most sites impacted revenue declined faster than traffic because search traffic monetizes so well & the US ad market is so much deeper than most foreign markets. Thus a site that had 50% profit margins might have just went to break even or losing money after this update. :D

When Google updates the US content farmer algorithm again (likely soon, since it has already been over a month since the update happened) it will likely roll out around other large global markets, because Google does not like running (and maintaining) 2 sets of ranking algorithms for an extended period of time, as it is more cost intensive and it helps people reverse engineer the algorithm.

Some sites that get hit may be able to quickly bounce back *if* they own a well-read tech blog and have an appropriate in with Google engineers, however most will not unless they drastically change their strategy. Almost nobody has recovered and it has been over a month since the algorithm went live. So your best bet is to plan ahead. When the tide goes out you don't want to be swimming naked. :)

How to Write and Format Web Content

Web Content Writing is not like writing a college paper (thank goodness), which means you probably don’t have a lot of practice at ideal formatting. Unlike the world of academia where literally millennia have gone into developing forms and formats, webpages have only had a couple brief decades to find their bearings. To help those still in the early phases of writing web content (a.k.a. the phase of confusion and panic), here is a basic checklist to go through before publishing work.

Are My Sentences Too Long?
Every sentence will express a very different thought, so variation is natural and even good in writing. However, sentences that extend too long will simply confuse and infuriate readers. Try to keep your sentences no longer than about 40 words, which equates to about two lines in average web publications.

Are My Paragraphs Too Long?
Advice varies on how long paragraphs should be, but the general consensus is they should be “edible.” What this means for the standard user is typically somewhere around three to five lines of text, or roughly 50 to 100 words. Variation is certainly acceptable, but it shouldn’t extend too far beyond the crunch three to five lines.

Are My Sentences Too Complex?
Are you using several independent clauses, all joined together, one after another, in a series of commas that seems to never end, running on forever like it’s being chased, kind of like I’m doing now; perhaps it doesn’t even end with a typical period but instead continues, frivolously, self-interjecting, whisking around – like it’s beating brownie batter! – and, in the end, doing nothing more than confusing all your readers. There can be something elegant and beautiful about complex sentences, but they diminish reader comprehension and patience.

As a general standard, try not to have more than two independent clauses in a sentence (that will usually mean no more than one comma) and use abnormal punctuation sparingly. Sentences that are currently too complex can easily be re-cast into multiple sentences or slightly new phrasing.

Are My Headlines Active?
Drawing readers in is even more important on the Web, where the article title may be all some potential visitors have to go off of. Make your headlines interesting and active by including numbers (such as 6Plot Threads Famous Movies Forgot to Resolve), clear indications of the use of the information (such as the “how to” mentioned in the title of this article), and energetic adjectives (such as The World’s Creepiest Plants).

Is My Headline Too Long?
The headline should only take up one line of text, which means that it shouldn’t exceed about 50 characters (assuming you’re using a standard H1 tag size). That’s roughly six to eight words of content, varying pretty broadly dependent on how long the words you use are.

Do I Have an Introduction?
Even with the best headline in the world, you will want to introduce the content to come. This can be anything from a two line summary of what you’re about to say to a five line background on how the industry was started. The point is that you should prepare readers so that your direction and organization are both clear before you present your data, arguments, or other content.

Have I Proofread This Piece?
Nothing says “I don’t care” quite like a blatant tiepoh in the middle of your piece. Most people require at least a couple proofings before they catch all the errors, and even then some are bound to slip through. Make sure you’re taking the necessary precautions by doing your due diligence even after the final paragraph is written; just because you’ve finished writing doesn’t mean the article is complete.

Am I Inviting Feedback?
While it won’t always make sense to do so, most places where you are publishing web content probably allow for reader comments. Capitalize on this by inviting users to leave comments. The most effective approach tends to be providing one or two specific questions to stir conversation and get the ball rolling.

Keep in mind, as a rule, that rules should regularly be broken. What about you? Which of the above rules is it nearly impossible for you to prevent yourself from bending in each article?

Read more: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-checklist-how-to-write-and-format-web-content/28754/

Google's Cat & Mouse SEO Game

This infographic highlights how Google's cat and mouse approach to SEO has evolved over the past decade.

One of the best ways to understand where Google is headed is to look at where they have been and how they have changed.

Click on it for ginormous version.


Infographic by SEO Book

Where to Get Inspiration for Blog Posts

I write several blog posts every month. Most of the time I have no trouble coming up with a topic. After all, I read so much that something usually grabs my attention.

But some days I'm desperately looking for a topic to blog about. At these times, I might just walk away from the computer and do other things until an idea pops up.

But on other days the Internet is the solution. Here are some of the places you can go to get inspiration for your blog posts.

Twitter

It's almost impossible these days to think about an online world without Twitter. Within a couple of years Twitter has become one of the leading online services -- at least when we're talking about the tech industry.

In some other industries this social tool is only just emerging. Still, it can be a useful tool for almost every industry.

You can use Twitter to find a topic for your blog post. By looking at your timeline or looking at the trending topics you will see what topics are "hot."

What are people sharing? What are they talking about? It will give you a general idea of possible topics.

You can use Twitter search to filter down the topics by adding a keyword which is connected to the topics you usually blog about.

Google Trends and insights

Another way of seeing what people are interested in is Google Trends. It will give you an idea of what people are searching for worldwide or in a specific region.

Just looking at the trends might just give you a few ideas, but you can make them more specific by combining the trends with keywords you're interested in and checking them in Google Insights. You will most definitely find a topic to write about that way!

Q&A Sites

You want to write blog posts that people will want to read. You like to have an audience after all, right? That is why the trending topics on Twitter and Google are interesting to look at.

Looking at Q&A sites is another way of finding out what people are interested in. That is where people are asking the questions you might be able to answer.

A good example of a site like that is Quora. Just open up the site and see what questions people have. If you know the answer you can either answer the question or make a blog post out of it (or both).

Sites like Quora, but also Yahoo Answers and Ask.com, are great places to see what people want to know and what they want to read. They are practically asking you to blog about a certain topic.

Comments on Specific Niche News Sites

Many sites write about what's happening in the tech industry. In addition to Search Engine Watch, there's Mashable, TechCrunch, and The Next Web.

A site like Techmeme brings them all together. You have sites like this in most industries -- some more than others -- but look carefully and you will find them. These sites offer great content, but they will also tell you what's hot and what interests readers.

You should follow these sites and read the content, but more importantly: follow the comments. The comments will tell you what the readers think and what they want to hear. It is a great source of inspiration to eventually take a different angle on a story, based on the comments.

RSS Reader

One of my personal favorites is my RSS Reader. I've subscribed to many sites and I use different tools to read them, from the Google Reader account on my computer to Pulse and Zite on my iPad.

The sites I look at are the "bigger ones" I mentioned before, but even more important when it comes to inspiration are the smaller sites. Small local sites from different countries give you a nice insight in what is going on in their world. You will see that there are very many different topics you can choose from.

Your Analytics

A very good way of finding out what you should be writing about is your Analytics Program. It will tell you what kind of posts people like to read, but a closer look will also show you what they want to read.

A look at your analytics will give you an idea of what people were looking for when they found your site in the first place. Does that match the articles you have on there? Or could you maybe write something that would really fit the search they were doing?

Also, make sure you look at your internal search engine. It will show you the topics they expect to find on your site. Chances are you might get some inspiration there.

Ask Your Followers and Readers

A nice way to get inspiration for a post, and at the same time write content that fits the needs of your readers, is to ask your readers or your followers. Ask them on social media like Twitter or Facebook or simply put up a post asking for suggestions. I've seen it happen many times and the bloggers always received great feedback and tons of ideas for blog posts.

Read More: http://searchenginewatch.com/3642058

4 Reasons Why Bloggers Should Give Links

It’s sad to say that many sites are still link hogs, with some editorial policies stating specifically that outbound links are not to be given unless under special, and incredibly specific, circumstances. Why all the link hoarding?

Well, luckily, bloggers have a say in the matter when their editorial decisions are purely their own, and it’s good to see that more bloggers are becoming more generous and strategic in their linking decisions, but for those who need some more incentive to link out, or are link hoards entirely, here are a few reasons you MUST give links:

1. You offer value to your readers who then see you are a great resource when you link to informative articles

When you’re sharing more information than what is necessary, you are thought of as the hub to go to for information on a topic, the ‘thought leader’ in your niche, because you know all the other great blogs and posts relevant to what you are writing about.

While, yes, you are pretty much sending your readers over to another site, allowing them to engage somewhere you don’t manage or benefit from, your readers will remember you for sending them to the other articles because if you linked to useful places, you will have given them more value than you could have on your blog unless you were to plagiarize and never give attribution to the source.

2. Stories are more credible when you’re referencing other quality works

Unless you’re a blogger with more than 25 years of experience in a field, or part of a research firm investing tens of or even hundreds of thousands of dollars into a study, not all of your posts will be read with 100% credibility unless you have some solid facts to support your writings, and those solid facts can come from in-house case studies, experiments and surveys, so it’s useful for to increase your credibility by referring to other experts who have similar thoughts and opinions.

You are also being very honest to your community and to yourself when you link to others’ posts because the fact is, 100% of your ideas are never truly yours, whether they were taken from someone else and you happened to forget that you got that idea from them, or if your ideas were derivatives or products of things you may have read on other blogs.

3. You gain (not lose) pagerank when you link to authoritative sites and stories, even when the sites you’re linking too aren’t linking back to you

Since you’re showing the search engines you’re not a link hoard, and are linking to useful sites and stories, your post will be deemed as more authoritative by the search engines because you’re sharing credible content that will clearly benefit your users, and searchers who the search engines may send your way.

Sometimes the most relevant result a search engine can offer, especially for searches that just don’t have one right answer, is the result with a great summary of all the best answers out there with attribution to the original sources for further detail. Think Mahalo.com, but less about content aggregation and more value added.

4. You spread some goodwill when you give links because when you give links, you’re likely to get links from those who you’ve given links to and others too

What goes around comes around. In the karmic linking world, if you give links, you’re more likely to get links from the sites you’re linking too who will be thankful you showed them link love first. You are also more likely to get links from others who see your credible post that is linking to other quality posts. Since you’re linking to those other great posts, your post may look like the most comprehensive post of them all, making you the most likely candidate for link love!


Read more: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/4-reasons-why-bloggers-should-give-links/28714/

Tips for Writing Awesome Blog Posts

Blog writing is a great online marketing strategy.  Blogs allow an individual or company to write in an informal way about topics that interest their target audience.  By updating a blog frequently with informative and engaging content, the author will begin to be viewed as an expert in the industry.  Blog writing can be very effective if done correctly.  It takes time and effort to write blog posts and build a following.  Here are some tips to ensure that your blog sticks out from the rest:

Differentiate Yourself
There are only so many things to write about within an industry.  The key to getting noticed is to take a different approach than everyone else is taking.  Put your own spin on the subject and write about it in a slightly different way.

Get Creative with the Title
The title is what will make people click on the post or click off of your page.  Make it something that will pique the interest of the reader to ensure that they want to continue reading to see what it is that you have to say.  One possible strategy is to start with a creative title like "How Marketing is like Kindergarten" and then think of ways that marketing could be compared to kindergarten.  They key is to have a noticeable and sticky title.

Be Entertaining
Of course, there are some topics that are very serious and don't allow for any humor. However, many things can. Humor doesn't have to be offensive, just something that will make the reader smile or chuckle a bit. Cater to the interests of your target audience. Try an inside joke that only those in your industry would get.

Vary the Content
Switch it up every once in awhile. A blog post doesn't always just have to be text. You can also post a video or a presentation that your company has created.

Encourage Comments
A blog is the original social media outlet. It was a space that allowed people to share their thoughts and interact with each other online long before Twitter and Facebook.  There is a comment section for a reason. Encourage comments and questions and be sure to respond to those that took the time to leave you a message. It shows that you value your loyal readers.

Be Shareable
Incorporate share buttons to social sites like Facebook and Twitter on your blog and provide a link to email the post to a friend or colleague.  A blog post is much more likely to be passed along if there is an easy way for readers to do so.

Utilize Keywords
You're already writing a blog, so you might as well get some SEO benefits out if it. Think about the keywords that your business is targeting and incorporate them into your content. Remember, it needs to be natural. A blog post that is "stuffed" with keywords provides a very bad user experience.  Cater to your readers first, and the search engines second.

Source: http://www.addme.com/blog/promotional-resources/internet-marketing/tips-awesome-blog-posts.htm

Top 13 Social Media Ranking Factors for SEO

Depending on who you speak to, search engine optimization (SEO) is either largely influenced or not at all influenced by social media. I'm sure everyone has their own opinions, case studies, and sites that show greater or lesser correlations between their social media engagement levels and their natural search results.

If you were to carry out an investigation into whether social media was a big influencing factor, which metrics would you want to monitor in order to base your insights on more empirical data?

Here is a list of 13 ranking factors below. Feel free to use these and any others you can get your grubby SEO mitts on!

1. Number of Followers (Twitter)

You'll need your own corporate Twitter feed, which brings its own problems around brand protection and also the potential for dealing with customer service enquiries, but the more followers you have, the more authoritative your Twitter persona and the more value will be associated with your URL (assuming you have remembered to link to it).

2. Quality of Followers (Twitter)

The best followers are the ones with their own communities of followers. The more high value people who follow you, and retweet your stuff, the better.

3. Relevance of Followers (Twitter)

It's one thing getting followed and retweeted by Stephen Fry with over a million followers, but it's also important to get the same response from accounts that are more specific to your industry. Someone with "fashion" in their description who retweets your "20 percent off the new spring collection" offer is equally valuable.

4. Number of Retweets (Twitter)

Most likely as a ratio of tweets to retweets -- the more your content is reproduced by others the more authoritative it is. Obviously the more followers you have, the more likely you are to be retweeted. However, it isn't just about retweeting other people's content or dishing out promotions. It's about engaging in conversation with people in the industry.

5. Number of Fans (Facebook)

You'll need to create your own corporate profile on Facebook, which brings the same potential banana skins as a corporate Twitter feed, only multiplied numerous times due to the sheer level of engagement of people on Facebook. However, if you decide to engage with customers and potential customers on Facebook, the total number of likes your page receives will add value to your URL.

6. Number of Comments (Facebook)

A large number of likes, but little engagement, is a sure sign of someone gaming the system. People will tend to like you if you talk to them. Successful Facebook pages include a lot of content written by other people.

7. Number of Views (YouTube)

An obvious one, but any content you upload to YouTube should link to your site in the description, and the more times it is viewed, the more value will be attributed to your video.

8. User Comments (YouTube)

YouTube is also about engaging with other YouTubers and commenting on popular videos. The more you comment, the more link juice is passed back to your profile.

9. References From Independent Profiles (YouTube)

Using YouTube can bring in some really good authority if done brilliantly -- if your link from your video passes some value, imagine how much more value would be passed if you could get other people to parody your work and include links to you from their profiles. The prime example remains the Cadbury's Gorilla, but there are lots of interesting mini-campaigns trying to leverage the above.

10. Title of Video (YouTube)

Any references to your target keywords in the title of the video will help ensure that any authority passed will be relevant to a specific theme. Keywords should also be in the tags and or transcript where possible.

11. Percent of Likes vs. Dislikes (YouTube)

Easy one. The more liked your content is, the more authoritative it is.

12. Positive vs. Negative Brand Mentions (All Social Media)

Use a tool like Radian6, or a free tool, and ensure that you have significantly more positive brand mentions than negative. It won't be 100 percent accurate as these things don't pick up on sarcasm. But Google has already made investment in this area in 2011, so it's well worth monitoring.

13. Number of Social Mentions (All Potential Media)

Total visibility across all social media shows that your content is important to all people and not just a result of a large special offer for Facebook/Twitter users. HowSociable is a simple way of giving yourself a rating here.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/3642048

Global Strategies For Google's Panda Update

If all your global sites have low quality links, duplicate content, and are on a subdirectory, then Google's Panda update will likely cause you problems. But don't give up and throw in the towel. You can still get your act together.

This article will give you some insight on some things you can do to mitigate any risk you might be facing and provide some ideas on how to improve your global pages now that up to 20 percent of your competitors may have disappeared.

Assessing Your Pain

Any global search engine optimization (SEO) doctor will first ask you where you feel the most pain. Identifying rank/traffic loss per country is a key strategy. Your site may have lost ranking because of something other than what you initially thought.

Panda's significance is how it views content and links, specifically similar or duplicate content and poor quality links. A thorough assessment of each one of your global sites will give you some insight into where to start and what to start with.

Reviving Your Content

If you've lost positioning with pages that share the same language but didn't lose positioning from your pages that have their own languages, then chances are you got bit by the Panda due to duplicate content.

Remember, duplicate content isn't only because of your English pages. It could also be a conflict between other languages, such as Brazilian Portuguese vs. Portugal's Portuguese or even between Austrian German and German spoken in Germany.

Deduplication will be necessary. Have a content transcriber in your target country re-write the content in your source country. It's time consuming, but well worth it.

Mapping the same keyword to the content is fine, however you might want to de-duplicate your URLs, reduce the amount of AdSense ads you have placed within the content (if any), and while you're at it, make sure to visit Google Webmaster Tools. Google's tools now do a pretty good job geotargeting your URL structures, so if you have a UK subdirectory, telling Google where it's at will help its spiders understand that the UK site is a local standalone site and not part of a content scheme.

Resuscitating Your Link Building Strategy

On the other hand, if you lost positioning and traffic from all of your global sites, it could be due to your link building tactics, especially if you use a subdirectory structure instead of ccTLDs.

A subdirectory structure (e.g., www.example.com/FR/) can face a number of different issues. If you had a link farm in just one country for example, and that link farm pointed to one of your pages, it's likely your whole site would be affected. If you have low quality links pointing to your duplicate UK pages, your U.S. site may suffer.

A ccTLD structure, if you can do it, would help you out a lot at this point. A URL structure like www.example.fr improves trust and engagement with your target audience, and also helps legitimate local link builders point directly to the "correct" site rather than a folder. If you have a subdirectory, make sure to tell Google about it through Webmaster Tools.

The key to it all is planning on making each site useful, relevant and as local as possible to your target market. The days of creating useless duplicated content and participating in link farms are now over.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/3642047

6 Ways to Structure Your In-House SEO Team for Success

Whether you've just decided to start a search engine optimization (SEO) team, expand your current team, or are happy with what you've currently got, there's always a concern that there's a better way to deploy your existing resources in order to meet your business goals.

Below are six different structures that may work for your organization, depending on the size of your organization and your strategic direction.

Matrix / Embedded

The SEO team is structured in a hierarchical manner, with the members reporting up to an individual (director, VP, etc.) in the chosen department (usually marketing, but not necessarily). The team members are then embedded within other departments / sites where they dotted line report up to the management within that department.

The main benefit of this structure is that the SEO team member is often viewed as a member of that team, becomes a subject matter expert, and can use a built up rapport with that team to get work done.

The big drawback of this structure is that for it to work you need to have as many SEOs on the team as there are departments and sites (assuming there's enough work to be done to keep the SEO busy).

Centralized / Internal Agency

The other end of the spectrum is to have no embedding whatsoever. Under a centralized structure the SEO team can take work based on corporate prioritization of sites, or perhaps just on a first in, first out (FIFO) system, with the next SEO in line taking the next project to come up.

The main benefits of this structure are that sites that may otherwise not get the help that they need get it, and the SEO team can step back a little and work on the bigger picture unencumbered by loyalties to particular sites. You can also structure the team in such a way as to allow for specialization in particular areas (i.e., one member of the team handles SEO for all editorial content, while another handles architectural issues).

The biggest drawback is that you lose the ability to build and maintain a rapport between an SEO and the individual teams, as it may be a different SEO that works on different projects each time.

Direct Report

This is similar to the matrix structure, with the difference being that the SEO instead reports directly to the department / site, and is matrixed into the SEO hierarchy. This means the SEO isn't directly accountable to an SEO organization, but is instead measured by the goals of their department, which may not directly align with those of the SEO org.

Training Organization

If the SEO team is too small to handle the work that needs to be done within your company, then help needs to come from somewhere, and where better than from within your own organization? Set your SEO team up to identify advocates within each department (development / editorial / product) or site and train them up to act as an extended team.

It's a great idea to incentivize them and also to make them accountable for the SEO performance of the areas they work on. What's also great with this structure is that if you need to grow the core SEO team then you have an internal pool of applicants that you can pick from, rather than having to find someone on the outside.

Vendor Management Structure

If your team is small, and you have mission critical SEO work that requires far more resources than you have available, then there are plenty of SEO agencies that would only be too willing to work with you on whatever basis you need (project by project, retainer, etc). Just be prepared for your SEO team to spend some of their time on vendor management, as you'll have to have regular meetings, reviews, etc., in order for this to be successful.

Hybrid Structure

These structures aren't set in stone. You could potentially have some members of your SEO team focus on mission critical work, while having other members of the team identify and train up advocate for the rest of the organization. This may also give you greater flexibility in case one form doesn't appear to be working as well as others, you can then make the case for redeploying resources.

Whatever structure you decide is best for your organization, make sure that it's communicated effectively, so that everyone within your company knows what to expect and from whom. Only then will your SEO effort be successful.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/3641993

International Women's Day 2011 Google Doodle

International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8. This year marks the Day's 100th anniversary and Google is helping women worldwide organize on bridges this year. Now Google is reminding everyone about the day with an International Women's Day Doodle, which has already appeared in selected countries, including Australia, Taiwan, India, and even Hong Kong.

International Women's Day is a celebration of women that ranges from culture to culture, remembering women's achievements socially, economically and politically. While women have made major strides toward equality, recent economic and employment numbers show other there is still a long way to go.

The New York Times reports that private sector jobs are up over half a million, but women's jobs are down by 141,000 and the unemployment rate for women has risen slightly, while men's jobless rate has dropped slightly.

Typically, custom Google logos (called Doodles) are linked to a search result page about the Doodle's topic. For International Women's Day, Google has linked to their event page, to create more awareness for day's events.

A Google map of the world contains clickable pins where you can register to participate in a bridge gathering event. Google announced their participation in International Women's Day 2011 last month via their blogs, encouraging people to organize on bridges to recognize the challenges women continue to face around the world.

Google's efforts are not limited to the logo redesign. They also include a YouTube video, map showing organizers.


Source: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110308-000101

Mahalo, Business.com, Article Aggregators Hardest Hit By Google Update

The impact of Google's latest search ranking algorithm update is starting to show. While Mahalo is getting a bunch of the press, the ezine article aggregators seem to be the ones most heavily hit -- along with some of the business directory sites.
And apparently, eHow is a high-quality site in Google's eyes. For now, anyway. Early data suggests Demand Media's much maligned eHow property has benefited the most.

Here's a look at the biggest losers and winners, and some early thoughts on what it all means.

Google Algorithm Change Losers
Johannes Beus of Sistrix reports:
"The first conclusion is quite straightforward: the number of keywords these domains are ranking for dropped dramatically. Looking at mahalo.com as an example, it went from 33,875 keywords before the update to just 9,740 keywords after the update went public - a decrease of more than 70%. These were keywords like "zealand air" (3), "digg" (8) or "tax check" (4) where the domain fell out of the top 100 results. The second outcome deals with the remaining keywords," Beus said.

Sistrix also provided a visual showing how mahalo.com was impacted:

However, it must be noted that the comparison is based on 1 million keywords comparing two different days of the same week. It seems as though Thursday was compared against Friday -- and Thursday is usually a higher-traffic day for many sites. This sort of comparison isn't conclusive, but nonetheless interesting.
The ezine article sites appear to have been hit bad -- this had been a white hat method of SEO so the shakeout has yet to be fully seen. The Alexa numbers for the top aggregators ezinearticles.com and associatedcontent.com are below, how this continues once other sites get that share of searches lost should shake a lot of web activity.

Both have had serious losses in rank, search percentage and pageviews, much harsher than Mahalo.

Dan Abbamont also reported seeing Mahalo and EzineArticles taking damage. Also taking hits: hubpages.com; squidoo.com; articlesbase.com; buzzle.com; associatedcontent.com; suite101.com. However, the comparison methodology here is a bit questionable, as the writer compared Google.com results vs. Google.ca results.
SEOClarity also put together a report listing the top 10 sites that suffered the worst losses, based on ~60,000 keywords, comparing Feb. 22 to Feb. 24 (Tuesday vs. Thursday):

Google Algorithm Change Winners
Here's a look at eHow's rankings before and after Google's algorithm update, via Sistrix:

Sistrix reports that it doesn't appear Google tried to downrank ehow.com at all.
SEOClarity also looked at the top 10 domains that saw greatest gains of top 10 rankings:

Aaron Wall at SEO Book.com also put together a list of competing eHow sites that saw traffic gains (noted in green), via SEMRush stats.

Sites in red took major hits. Yellow sites are Demand Media sites that were impacted.


Early Analysis
The change announcement by Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal included "Many of the changes we make are so subtle that very few people notice them. But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking--a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries--and we wanted to let people know what's going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites--sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites--sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on".
And as Aaron Wall notes Mahalo is not that bad. What happens to AllTops and sites of that ilk?
While the "write an article" niche seems to be hit, no doubt the value of being a guest blogger has gone up considerably. Sadly, the white hat SEO list of legitimate link building processes has gone. How quickly this drop in link values and keyword authority should launch a huge reorganization of the SERPs soon. Meanwhile, I am thinking a lot of sites have yet to be touched by the impact of this.
What happens when a link to me is downplayed because a link to it had been given lift from the dropped content and no longer passes this along -- well on record and filtered through all the Google data centers.

Business.com and allbusiness.com are both in the top 25 -- one has to wonder how the new buyers of business.com are feeling about their investment right now. Possibly not as bad as others, but not happy.

UK SEO David Naylor noted the changes have yet to reach the UK, but is expecting them and waves of changes in the general metrics he monitors.
The short term impact is being seen right now -- a month from now the SERPs will be very different in many, many cases.

Source: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110226-184951