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The Best Way To Keep Up With Google? – Ethical SEO

Friday, December 14th, 2012

It is a known fact that regular optimization of a website is a vital part of ranking well in search engines, especially Google. But, what some may not know is that SEO can actually hurt a site. “Over SEOing,” as we like to call it here at NetSearch, occurs when there are too many links going to a site. It is true in fact that link building can go too far. It is hard for the common consumer to understand that the same practices that can give your site great rankings and visibility can also end up getting you wiped off of the search engines completely.

The key way to make sure that your site remains in good standing with Google is to be sure that you or your SEO company always conducts SEO in an ethical way. Ethical you say? By this we mean that the only way to avoid penalties from Google is to organically link build – no paying for links, no using link farms, and no posting links in irrelevant directories. Some red flags that a “SEO-er” may take part in unethical practices is if their prices are extremely low, they guarantee first page placement in a very short amount of time, or they have no reporting to show the consumer exactly how they are running any given campaign. In the end the world of SEO is changing very fast and it is important to stay ahead of the curve before your webpage, and ultimately business, feels the consequences. To learn more about ethical SEO practices, see this recent article from Forbes.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Internet News, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Change, Change, and More Change for Google

Friday, August 17th, 2012

When it comes to search engine marketing, it seems like every time we turn around there is a new update or change to account for, especially when it comes to Google. Consumers, business owners, and marketers alike have clearly voiced their frustrations with the reoccurring Google changes. People are not frustrated because the Google changes are hurting them, but more so because they were never forewarned nor informed about the changes and updates. But, fear not! Google has heard the complaints and begun releasing their lists of algorithm changes in a timely manner.
Just last Friday, Google released a massive list of changes for the months of June and July. Some of the main changes that top the lists are improving mobile search, better understanding of natural language, and creating more direct answer style results. You may have noticed that when searching for a question based query instead of getting several answers listed in the organic section, one large “answer” appeared at the top of your screen such as this:

Although the changes as of late are small in comparison to previous occasions, it is piece of mind to know that Google is keeping their users informed by releasing these lists of updates. Stay tuned for what Google may have in store for us next!

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SOPA, PIPA, and the Future of the Internet

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Prior to yesterday, there was a good chance that most folks hadn’t heard of or didn’t care about the two bills making their way through Congress, the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). But that was before the efforts of some exceptionally well-known names in the internet world made some rather bold statements in opposition to the bills.

On Wednesday, January 18, Wikipedia – a non-profit online encyclopedia, and one of the most trafficked sites on the web – blacked out the English language version of their site in protest, shutting it down for 24 hours. In its place was information about PIPA and SOPA, as well as links and contact information for Congressmen for every district in the United States. Google, while not taking quite the drastic measure of shutting down its site, nevertheless showed solidarity by obscuring the logo on its home page with a large black bar, and linking to an online petition against the two bills.

So why the protest? The two bills are intended to help fight online piracy by making it easier to shut down sites that sell counterfeit goods or facilitate the illegal download of entertainment properties. However, legal experts have expressed concern that the language is too broad, and could force internet service providers to block access to offending sites without due process. Many in the internet industry fear that SOPA or PIPA could lay the groundwork for further federal government infringement upon the freedom of the internet, pointing to China’s draconian censorship of the web for its citizens.

The bills are supported by a number of corporate interests, including Fox News and Nike, as well entertainment industry organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). However, broad public opposition (Wikipedia says that over 8 million site visitors looked up their Congressional representatives’ contact information Wednesday, while Google’s online petition amassed 4.5 million signatures) appears to have had a significant impact: eight Congressmen have withdrawn support for the two bills, including two original co-sponsors.

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Google’s Hotel Finder Experiment

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

If you’re still trying to squeeze in a vacation before summer ends, or maybe you have a business trip in the works, Google has a new product that could be helpful. It’s called the Hotel Finder Experiment. Whether it becomes a permanent feature remains to be seen but at first blush, it’s pretty slick.

The Hotel Finder main page is clean and simple, with options for location, check in and out dates, and an interesting price slider that lets you choose the cost per night based on the hotel’s typical pricing (from 50% below the typical room rate up to any room rate). There are also selectors for hotel class rating and minimum user rating.

Plug in Richmond, VA for example, and you get a list of a dozen hotels in the downtown area. The list is dynamic, so as you move the selection sliders on the left, the list changes to incorporate your criteria. Another cool feature is the map: Google automatically selects hotels in the most popular area of the city you selected, with a line drawing around the area. If you want to narrow or expand the area, simply drag the lines to form a new shape and Google will change your list accordingly.

The list can be sorted by class, user rating, room rate, or “compared to typical” pricing, a column that displays the percentage to normal pricing for the room. Clicking on any hotel on the list will bring up some nice photos and a description, as well as contact information, user reviews, and a link to booking services.

The Google Hotel Finder Experiment is not a game changer, at least as it stands, but it does provide very clear, uncluttered search results, and that’s a big improvement over just about any other hotel search method.

Posted in Internet News, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google+: The New Face of Social

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

The tech world is abuzz with news and reviews of Google+, search giant Google’s recent entry into the social media ring. Unless you’re one of the lucky 18 million or so current users who have received invitations to join (membership is by-invitation-only during the beta testing phase), first-hand information is hard to come by. But Google’s own statements and the reviews from numerous tech-savvy users have filled in a few of the gaps.

In general concept, Google+ is quite similar to the current king of the social network, Facebook. Both are set up as communication tools for their respective members, and both have business models that rely entirely on ad revenue. The early excitement centers around Google+’s Circles feature, an innovative and easy way to organize your relationships (family, friends, co-workers, clients, etc.), making it easy to share what you want only with those you want to see it. Google has been touting this feature as part of their focus on privacy, something that Facebook has had some PR trouble with in the past. In that vein, Google+ even allows users to take their data with them should they ever leave the service, another social networking first.

Now, these neat things aside, potentially the greatest advantage Google enjoys is the ability to integrate its existing suite of products and services, such as Gmail, Google Docs, and of course their mighty search engine, into Google+. This integration has the potential to shift the entire meaning of the social graph and how we use the internet. Powerful stuff, indeed.

Of course, Google still has to do plenty of things right to initiate such a shift, and Google+ is only three weeks old, after all. Facebook holds a 750 million-to-18-million user advantage so far, and that gives it a considerable amount of leverage. It remains to be seen, however, if only one social network will emerge or if the two can coexist. Stay tuned.

Posted in Internet News, Social Networking Sites | No Comments »

Google Offers Search Via Voice, Text or Image

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Google is now inspired to provide new ways to remove barriers to knowledge on the desktop and help you get to your results faster. On a mobile phone, you’re not limited to typing – you can search using your voice or a picture. Now you can do the same on your computer with Voice Search and Search by Image on your desktop or laptop. You can also get your results faster with Google Instant on Images and Instant Pages. With Voice Search now available on desktop, searching by voice is becoming more ubiquitous and the idea of being able to speak your search will be more familiar, no matter what you’re searching for.

To search using an image, go to images.google.com and just put your picture in the search box. Also, you can click the camera icon in the search box and upload a photo from your computer or paste the URL of an image from the web. You can also drag and drop pictures from web pages or your computer into the search box. To search images on the web even faster with just one click, you can download the Chrome or Firefox extensions.

According to Google, whether you’re typing, speaking, or using an image, entering your search is only part of the process. You’re not really done searching until you have the answer you’re looking for. But waiting for webpages to load adds time to this process – the average webpage takes about five seconds to load. With Instant Pages in Chrome, you can skip the extra seconds waiting for a page to load and get to the answers you’re looking for faster with web pages that load instantly.

Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google Panda Update Coming Soon

Friday, June 10th, 2011

Google will soon be releasing version 2.2 of the Panda algorithm update.

Google’s Matt Cutts said that the update have been approved but have not been rolled out yet, but that should happen soon.

The next update will target a common webmaster complaint related to the original Panda/Farmer update: sites that scrape and re-publish content and are out-ranking the original source of the content.

Google’s Cutts also reiterated some previous Panda-related information:

Google will continue to tweak and update the Panda algorithm.
There’s no exact date yet for when Panda will launch fully beyond English-language searches.

Posted in Internet News, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google Supports “Author” Tag

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Google recently announced they will support the authorship markup, enabling content sites to help identify their authors on the site and across the web. Content would be linked up to the writers name and can be used to find all the stories the author has written on any site. It uses the rel attribute, so all you need to do is add the rel=”author” to your author’s hyperlink on the article page. For example:

Written by <a rel=”author” href=”../authors/amandabradbury”>Amanda Bradbury</a>.

As Google explained, this tells search engines: “The linked person is an author of this linking page.” The rel=”author” link must point to an author page on the same site as the content page. For example, the page http://example.com/content/webmaster_tips could have a link to the author page at http://example.com/authors/mattcutts. Google uses a variety of algorithms to determine whether two URLs are part of the same site. For example, http://example.com/content, http://www.example.com/content, and http://news.example.com can all be considered as part of the same site, even though the hostnames are not identical.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Internet News, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google Makes Search More Image Friendly

Monday, June 6th, 2011

According to an article on Mashable, Google has added a couple of features to its main search engine that make it easier to search for images, as well as browse through image related results. One of the ways Google has made it easier is that now images that show up in main search results will increase in size when you move your mouse over the picture which could possibly make it easier to choose the picture you want.

Also, if you indicate that you’re searching for images in the main search on Google then Google will recognize it and offer you a grid of images on top of the search results. The new image friendly features are currently available on Google.com.