Monthly Archives: September 2013

Google’s New Algorithm-Hummingbird

Google has been around for fifteen years now, and Hummingbird is apparently the biggest thing they’ve done to algorithm in twelve.

What is Hummingbird and how do you know if it’s affecting your site’s ranking?

Hummingbird is the nickname that’s been assigned to update, 90 % of searches are affected. By comparison, that’s much higher than most of the Google algorithm updates we see from Google.

Google announced the algorithm update at a press event on Thursday along with some other interface and knowledge Graph tweaks. Hummingbird was described as the biggest algorithm change since the caffeine and that it is designed to let Google quickly parse entire questions and complex queries and return relevant answers, as opposed to looking at queries on a keyword-by-keyword basis.

In particular, Google said that “Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query-the whole sentence or conversation or meaning-is taken into account rather than pages matching just a few words”.

A lot of people are worried about its impact and of course Panda and Penguin which we’ve been talking about all summer and even last year, are those dead? The answer to that seems to be, no, not entirely. They are using elements that they learned through Panda and Penguin in this new Hummingbird update.

This is really just an extension of Google’s ongoing strategy to become less dependent on keywords, which does have implications for SEO, and while webmasters may not have to worry about a major drop-off in rankings like with updates Panda or Penguin this could be more of an ongoing struggle for those competing to get on search results pages.

For now, according to Google (per Sullivan’s report), you don’t need to worry about anything, and Google’s normal SEO guidance remains the same.

Google launches new knowledge Graph

Google announced some new features in celebration of its fifteenth birthday. Google spoke about being able to process more complex queries, and part of that is evident in the new comparisons feature that presents Knowledge Graph facts side-by-side.

Just pull up your phone and say to Google: “Tell me the Expressionist artists”. You will see who the artists are and you can dive in to learn more about each of them and explore their most famous works. If you want to switch to Abstract artists, you can do that really easily with our new filter tool”.

The way Google is trying to build information about real world connections is by building a knowledge Graph. For example if we do a search for a famous person, it collect relevant data about them, such as their date of birth, how tall they are. One of the first features that are introduced which applies knowledge Graph is a panel next to the web results. On both the desktop and mobile devices, you can do searches.

Let’s say wanted to learn about the most important Renaissance painters, you might search for “Leonardo Da Vinci” because he is the only Renaissance painter you know about. Now you’ll see information right in the search results that helps you to explore broader topic of Renaissance painters. You’ll see the most famous paintings from that era, like the Mona Lisa and discover other painters at that time like Michelangelo and Raphael.

Google’s Amit Singhal says that “We keep expanding features of the knowledge graph so it can answer more questions-even those don’t have a simple answer. Our new comparison tool gives you new insights by letting you compose new answer.”

Google will soon launch an update to the Google search app for iPad and iPhone that will provide Now-based reminder notifications across devices. Google is also launching a new design for mobile search results and ads.

Google turns on secure search, except for Ad clicks

Google is now beginning to roll its encrypted secure search feature to more people. Earlier, secure search was only available to those who were signed into their Google accounts, now it’s working to make secure search the default for everybody even those who are not signed into a Google account.

In essence various sites are reporting that the “NOT PROVIDED” percentage of organic keyword referrals has jumped from 50-60% up to 95%, 99% or 100% , so sites are not able to pull full international statistics yet, but all signs point of SEOs and webmasters not being able to pull data on Google driven keyword traffic anymore.

Google’s latest move is interesting in the context of its own actions against the NSA as well as recent leaks regarding the agency’s activities. The leaked prism slides from early June revealed that the NSA can collect “notifications of target activity” and “special requests” both of which may involve searches, from the tech companies that are allegedly involved. If Google supplies encrypted searches to everyone, it may be able to slow down the pace at which the NSA can obtain search information from it.

The motivation here is not to drive the ads site-it’s for search users. It’s not still clear why Google seems to have ramped up things.

Android 4.4 KitKat will be out in October

A Posting to Nestle’s Facebook account in Germany Confirmed as “Android 4.4 KITKAT is available from October”

So what can we expect from the Android 4.4 Kitkat? Well, Google was elusive in a statement: “It’s our goal with Android Kitkat to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody”

As far as release date and timing, there’s been rumors floating around the net’s that Google could be planning to unveil the Nexus 5 as early as October and with that, the next version of Android 4.4 kitkat in the process.

The search giant has been in news ever since it announced the next iteration of its mobile operating system, with the Nexus 4 successor, which is expected to be the platform lead device for Android 4.4 jelly, making multiple appearances on the internet via FCC filling and image leaks.

The updated OS is expected to debut on Google’s upcoming Nexus 5, with updates being pushed out for the Nexus 4 and new Nexus 7 shortly after its official unveiling. Given that October is just around the corner, we imagine Google is getting prepared to send their press invites in which they’ll want to give attendees ample time to plan for the trip.

Google wallet app for all Android Phones

Google announced that they will release the newest version of Google Wallet this week to all Android phones running Android 2.3 or above.

What is this new app all about?

This new Google Wallet app will allow users to send money from anywhere using email addresses that have been linked to bank accounts, keep store loyalty cards in a locker of sorts with a quick scan of your card, find and use Google offers with ease and see all of your purchase activity in one place.

With the new Google wallet app, you can leave all your plastic loyalty cards at home and carry them on your phone. To add your cards simply scan the barcode or input the card number into the app. You can easily join new programs like Alaska Airlines, Belly and Red Mango within the Google wallet app. And coming soon, choose even more programs including Avis Car Rental, BJ’s Restaurants, Cosi, Hard Rock International, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Raley’s and The Body Shop.

The app will still make purchases via tap-and-pay over NFC, but your phone-as was the case in the past-needs to be on their approved device list, which currently includes 29 different devices. Google did mention that they have more NFC-enabled devices on the horizon as they “continue to invest in NFC with partners”.

Continue to check the Play store, the new app will roll out this week or update your existing Wallet app.

Google webmaster tools-Link report now with more diverse data

Google announced they have improved the linkage data from Google webmaster tools “Links to your site” export option for “Download sample links”.

Earlier, the download sample links report downloaded a sampling of links in alphabetical order and stopped after a maximum of 100,001 links, it wasn’t that useful to users when they could get so many results from a single domain and there was no way to sort them.

Now the sampling of links is not done in alphabetical order, instead it is ordered in alphabetical order but rather it is now “sampled uniformly from the full spectrum of backlinks” said Google.

Shortly, when you download your data, you’ll notice a much broader, more diverse cross-section of links. Site owners looking for insights into who recommends their content will now have a better overview of those links and will find easier to see where to spend their time and effort.

This is a great change and has already gone live, so now you can download a better cross-section of your backlinks in Google webmaster tools.

Benefits of Google Trends for SEO purpose

Most of them are familiar with Google Trends and the SEO benefits of using the services as a keyword research tool. For those of you who are new to the concept, Google Trends shows you terms on your website and you might be able to generate a lot of traffic quickly by ranking for the trendy term.

If you use any popular keyword research tool you will get excellent information about which keywords were most heavily utilized along with nicely formatted rankings.

What if the search volume for your keywords is falling? Or rising?

What if search volume for your keywords has shifted in the past three years?

So, what tool will? Google Trends.

Google Trends is a keyword research tool that can help you see at glance how many people are searching on Google for the keywords you’re considering. Since Google is far and away the search engine of choice, focusing on Google keywords information provided can prove to be quite helpful.

Google Trends in Action

Let’s do one exercise together. Go to Google trends (google.com/trends) in your browser. Enter the following search terms, separated by comma:

Several things become apparent from this initial search. Now let’s drill down the data, click the drop down that says “All Years” and select “Last 12 months”, select country and relevant category, you can see the moving trends in more details.

If you used Google Trends to see that one keyword was gaining searches over time while the other was losing its’ steam, you’d want to emphasize the keyword with the rising trend in your copy. If you have to make a choice between keywords, Google Trends becomes even more important in making that decision.

Google Keyword tool Vs. Google Trends

Both tools rely on and present historical data I reaction to the criteria you set. But there is marked difference.

Take the term ‘Olympics’ as an example. Google’s Keyword Tool estimates that there are a massive 30,400,000 monthly searches per month for that term, based on the activity over the last 12 months. Of course we know that last year’s event will skew the results and that until the next event interest will fade. But imagine that we didn’t have that knowledge. We might pursue this keyword traffic based on an estimate that is inaccurate and potentially a waste of resource.

Google Trends is a fantastic stand-alone tool that can help to understand market demand and search trends; and its use is not limited to SEO alone. The information it provides is highly valuable and a business can use it to make decisions about market strategy.

Link Building for SEO beginners: How to conduct backlink Analysis

Incoming backlinks stand out as one of the most important factors that enable a favorable rank in Google SERP’s (search engine results pages). A look at your website’s backlinks reveals vital information, from inbound links that may be determined to your website performance, to content gems that provide clear directions for future content creation.

Competitor Identification:

Before analyzing what individual sites are doing , you need to identify who your true competitors really are. There is sometimes a difference between the top ten Google results for a site’s primary key phrase, and the true lay of a market’s land. Analyzing a market involves data, rank checking and battles with the Google Adwords API for search volumes, but it’s absolutely possible to do this in-house.

Whether you are an SEO Company or simply a marketer or blogger, you may want to identify and determine the quality of the links pointing at your website. There are many tools available to help you do this.

What are the web tools?

I’m going to provide some information on three tools which are the best and easiest to use for backlink analysis.

As an Internet Marketing Company, we use number of web tools that helps us to identify and analyze the volume and quality of links coming into our clients/ prospected clients websites which is a fundamental task to perform for SEO purposes and driving traffic to your site.

OPEN SITE EXPLORER

Moz’s open site explorer is an awesome tool to discover a number of website factors. The good thing about OSE is that you can break down the entire backlink analysis to find out what you are looking for. Whether you are looking for an individual link, the anchor text distribution, the source of a link or whether a link you built has been indexed or not, OSE is one tool that should provide the answer you are looking for.

You can filter through the data in order of preference, by simply clicking on the category in the menu, to help make your analysis or search as easy as possible. You can also conduct a link metrics comparison in conjunction with your competitors to see, how strong their website is and how many links they have coming into their sites.

MAJESTIC SEO

Majestic SEO is another great tool to use. It provides much of the same information and specifies that OSE, its main difference is the trust flow of the link profile and the visual chart of anchor text distribution analysis. Dependent on your current back link profile determine what type of SEO strategy will be created to benefit your individual website.

What is trust flow?

Trust flow is consistently passing through individual sites throughout the entire web. Each individual link that passes from one website to another, passes through authority to the referring domain. Trust flow can run through several pages, continuing to pass authority (link juice), however will eventually cease as the pages increase.

Google have always been aware of this finally and finally cracked down on over-optimization with the introduction of the panda update last year, which most digital marketers and webmasters are now well aware of.

Working in an online marketing company, it’s important for us to analyze a prospected clients backlink profile to identify what keywords they are targeting with anchor text terms and the volume of inbound links using the anchor text.

AHREFS

The site provides one of the largest index of live backlinks on websites. It runs an updated backlink check every 15 minutes to find large index of links on websites. It is a favorite backlink analysis tool for many website owners and SEO gurus, yet simple and convenient enough for novices because it comes with a user friendly interface. One can easily find the data of new and internal links, anchors, best pages and linking domains of a website. It is also capable of checking ranking and competition on keywords that you use on your site.

A complete website backlink analysis will help clarify and direct your SEO efforts, and in some cases certain parts of your general business strategy. Just don’t forget some important points

Stay on top of how search engines are treating backlink behavior.
Remove the bad backlinks in your own profile and look into potential link prospects.
Create content that will be useful to the readers in your niche.