Google’s “Best Guess”
Posted by admin on March, 23rd 2011Google very quietly launched a new little feature in the SERPs recently, the search engine now gives its ‘Best Guess” at any commonly agreed information.
Look at the example below for a Google search on a upcoming computer game called “Duke Nukem Forever”:
Searching the game’s name plus the words “release date” sparks off the new guessing feature, I recommend you give it a try for computer games, movies and albums.
Most upcoming releases don’t yet show in Google’s search results and ones that do are mentioned from only reputable sources such as magazine ... (Read more)
Read moreGoogle “Farmer” Update – What To Look Out For
Posted by admin on March, 4th 2011
There’s been a lot of big news from Google recently with some deeply impacting changes to their top-secret ranking algorithm. The biggest one for years came out recently which has been dubbed the “farmer” update.
Google update their complex algorithm on an almost daily basis to improve their search results, trying to eliminate spam and bad information. Every now and then a major change comes out which knocks down a significant number of clearly spammy websites; this update on the other hand affected a significant number of established websites such as EzineArticles.com and ... (Read more)
Read moreGoogle PageRank (PR) Update!
Posted by admin on January, 20th 2011
At last, Google have updated their PageRank score on web-pages across the whole of the internet!
The last Google Toolbar PageRank update was way back on the 2nd of April 2010 and it’s been a huge wait this time around with 2009 having 5 updates and 2010 having only one.
You can quickly tell the worth of a website by looking at it’s PR, a PR higher than 4 shows that a website has achieved some very quality links over it’s lifetime and will be full of unique content. A ... (Read more)
Read moreGoogle Fix Search Engine Results!
Posted by admin on January, 4th 2011Google have (for the first time) fixed their own search engine results.
Before anyone sues don’t panic… Google have teamed up with the Samaritans and other charities to help people in need. If anyone is looking for ways to commit suicide for example they’ll notice the number to call the Samaritans who are especially trained to deal with anyone in a highly emotional state. See below the image when you search for the word “suicide”:
Google’s original stance on charities was for them to use PPC advertising and “ethical” SEO techniques to ... (Read more)
Read moreGoogle Search Promotes Local Listings
Posted by admin on October, 29th 2010Google have drastically changed the way local search results are displayed on it’s search results listings.
Local listing are now brought out of the mini map and are now added to the main search results. See the image below for an example with the local keyword “restaurant nottingham”:
The mini map has been moved to the right hand side which covers the advertising as you scroll downwards. Intrestingly the data used for these new local listings comes from a combination of the homepage meta and the information stored in the local listing as ... (Read more)
Read moreGoogle Instant – How Will It Effect SEO?
Posted by admin on September, 9th 2010
Google revealed it’s new dynamic search engine interface yesterday which gives live results as you type: have a play with ‘Google Instant’ here
There’s been quite a stir about Google Instant, some people saying it’s just AutoComplete with bells and whistles, other people concerned about how it’ll effect Adwords and even some tabloids saying it’s something that’s a complete waste of effort. Again if you aren’t already playing with it you can find Google Instant on this link.
Long Tail Search Terms
Google’s Auto-Complete software predicts what you may be searching ... (Read more)
Google’s Sandbox for Major Site URL Changes
Posted by admin on September, 1st 2010
Changing a website’s entire URL structure can be both a blessing and a curse, if done incorrectly you can permanently damage a proportion of your overall SEO.
You may change the URL structure of your website to improve aspects such as on-site SEO and/or site usability such as product filtering. This can change nearly all of the addresses (URL’s) that are used to view each section of the website which can cause multiple issues as shown below:
- Google and other search engines remember your old links. ... (Read more)
Read moreGoogle Sitemaps – What To Look Out For
Posted by admin on August, 26th 2010When looking at your Webmaster Tools which features do you normally look at? The lazy SEO’er will just click through the links on the left hand side of the page, hoping that nothing stands out as odd or wrong.
If you’re new to Webmaster Tools or just find it a little daunting, one thing you can actively look for is the number of pages that have been indexed in comparison to the number your have submitted.
Look at the example above for RealWebSEO.com: we’ve submitted 150 URLs and 145 have ... (Read more)
Read moreHow Slow Page Speed Can Cost You Dearly
Posted by admin on August, 25th 2010
We see examples of slow websites everyday and are shocked that web designers and developers are getting away with ecommerce sites that are doomed from the off-set.
How many times have you visited a website only to have to wait whilst some fancy header or screen wide background loads up? This isn’t just slowing down how quickly a visitor views information on the site and annoying them, Google now considers page speed as a ranking factor!
Ecommerce websites are the main culprits of image or Flash heavy ... (Read more)
Read moreAnchor Text for Keyword Rankings
Posted by admin on August, 20th 2010
You probably know that the number of external links effects your search engine rankings but do you know the importance of what those links say?
The ‘anchor text‘ is the text displayed on an a link for example here is a link to RealWebSEO.com with the anchor text “SEO Nottingham”: SEO Nottingham
The text on a link can be set to anything you like, bad examples of internal of external links are:
- Image Links (as seen on many navigation bars)
- Links that have un-descriptive anchor ... (Read more)