2. Janet Driscoll Miller
President and CEO,
Search Mojo
Follow on Twitter: @janetdmiller
@searchmojo #mojowebinar
Tad Miller,
Vice President of Accounts,
Search Mojo
Follow on Twitter: @jstatad
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3. •
Search engine marketing firm founded in 2005
– Search engine optimization (SEO)
– Pay-per-click advertising management (PPC)
– Social media advertising
– Online reputation management
•
Headquartered in Charlottesville, VA
– Office in Charleston, SC
•
Featured in the Washington Post, B2B Magazine,
MarketingSherpa, Visibility Magazine and many blogs
•
Speakers at SMX Advanced, MarketingProfs, PubCon and more
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10. Passing PageRank
Spiders Following a Link
Treats the link like a vote
of popularity on a subject
(subject may partially be
defined by anchor text)
Spiders/search bots use
links like a highway to find
new content and index it
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11. • Google
– In general, we don't follow them. This means
that Google does not transfer PageRank or
anchor text across these links.
• Bing
– http://searchengineland.com/infographicnofollow-tag-172157
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12.
13. “You want to be #1 on
Google? All you have to do
is spend a lot of money
advertising on Google…”
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14. • Natural search results are derived from an
Algorithmic math formula factoring in at least
200 different factors about websites…none of
which includes advertising spend
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17. • Penguin focused on
linkspam
• “Any links intended to
manipulate PageRank or a
site's ranking in Google
search results may be
considered part of a link
scheme and a violation of
Google’s Webmaster
Guidelines. This includes
any behavior that
manipulates links to your
site.”
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20. “SEO is easy. If you want to
rank #1 for “Crossover
Vehicles”, just buy the
domain:
www.crossovervehicles.com
and Voila!
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21. • Then Google rolled out the Exact
Match Domain Update
• You no longer can get strong
rankings solely based on your
domain name. You have to fulfill the
other ranking requirements too.
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22.
23. • Maybe not dead, just not as important
as before.
• Google’s guidelines re: link schemes
– “Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases
distributed on other sites.”
• Google: If you are publishing a press release or an article on your
site and distribute it through a wire or through an article site, you
must make sure to nofollow the links if those links are “optimized
anchor text.”
• Pubcon 2013, Matt Cutts:
– Press releases are considered “paid links”
– Google just doesn’t count them
– Press release anchor-text linking isn’t necessarily helping you today
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24. • Messages from Google are cryptic.
Make press release links
“nofollow” and avoid anchor
text optimization.
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We don’t follow those links
anyways because they are
paid links.
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27. Late July 2013
PubCon – Oct 2013 - During Q&A, Cutts discussed links from press release sites. He said Google
identified the sites that were press release syndication sites and simply discounted them. He does
stress that press release links weren’t penalized, because press release sites do have value for
press and marketing reasons, but those links won’t pass PageRank.
“Google has identified “a lot” of the top Press Release sites and ignores the links but
doesn’t penalize those who are using them.”
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28. • There are MILLIONS of press releases with links in them
that have existed for years on MILLIONS of different sites
• They aren’t going to require anyone to find every
instance of these and find the locations of every reprint
so that you can request the nofollow attribute on the link
• Most press release distributors don’t even have an option
to make links nofollow
• The real burden is on the PR distribution service to make
links nofollow on a going forward basis
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29. • Expect a Google Power Play vs.
Press Release Distributors.
“Google has identified “a lot” of the top
Press Release sites and ignores the links
but doesn’t penalize those who are using
them.”
– Likely use of “User Generated Spam
Penalties” that remove offending pages from
the Google Index
– Google will force nofollow on the Press
Release distributors
– Real benefit is in the distribution, not on the
distributor site
• Again, these are most likely going
forward changes. Not retro-active
punishments
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30.
31. “A true guest blogger is usually someone who is
an expert on the subject matter and doesn’t drop
a heavy amount of keywords in their anchor
text.”
“Guest blogging seems like it’s the fad of the
month,” said Cutts, but he says it is best done in
moderation. “It shouldn’t be your full-time job.”
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32.
33. • Facebook Shares are the
biggest ranking factor…
• Facebook Likes are a
ranking factor
• Social media follower
counts can get you to the
top
• Google +1’s are ranking
factor
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37. • Google does not use Facebook
share data – in fact Facebook
blocks access to that data
Matt Says…
• Google does not use Google
+1 votes as a ranking factor:
– “(I’m) Just trying to decide the politest way to debunk
the idea that more Google +1s lead to higher Google
web rankings.”
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38. • Links on Facebook Fan or Company pages still count a
little
– Also open Personal Facebook pages with no privacy
settings
• Links on Social Channels without the nofollow attribute
count
– Sometimes third-party aggregator sites strip off the
nofollow
• Don’t expect a lot from these kind of links. They don’t
scale into much.
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39. • The default setting for Google signed-in
users is “Search Plus Your World”
• These results are heavily personalized on
search history, location and the
connections and content associated in
Google Plus with +1 votes and G+ shares
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42. • AuthorRank vs. Authority
– Authority = measure of importance on a subject
– AuthorRank = type of algorithm adjustment
Current: PageRank
Coming: PageRank + AuthorRank
PR 8
PR 8
+
AR 10
PR 3
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PR 6
PR 3
PR 6
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43. • Only 3.5% of Fortune 100 have adopted
authorship
• “Google is unable to use Authorship as a
ranking signal if important authors aren’t
participating.” – AJ Kohn
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46. • Site maps are more about giving search engines an
efficient, clutter free path to look at your web
pages
• Benefits:
– Deeper Indexing
– More Frequent Indexing
• Don’t assume your site is easy to crawl
• Site Maps are not likely to improve rankings unless
they allow a page to be found that search engines
haven’t seen before
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47.
48. • What is schema (aka structured markup)?
– Added information in your HTML
– Helps search engines understand the type of
content (think context)
• “Marking up your data for rich snippets
won't affect your page's ranking in search
results, and Google doesn’t guarantee to
use your markup.”
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49.
50. • “…new engine built on both existing and new
parts, organized in a way to especially serve
the search demands of today”
• Affects 90% of all searches
• The search demands of today are mobile style
conversational searches
– “What is the best place to eat hamburgers
in Charlottesville”
– “When does Big Head Todd and the
Monsters play Charlottesville”
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51. • Google Announced the Algorithm update
on September 26, but it was actually
rolled out on August 20
• We can’t tell that a single ranking from
our clients was impacted at all
• So much press, so much discussion, so
much supposition…
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52. • Google needed a better way to understand
the conversational queries
• “Siri-like” voice queries that are longer
• Better understanding of natural language &
synonyms
• Improved Query Processing
• It doesn’t really change what you should do
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53.
54. • Inbound links
– Press releases
– Spammy sites
• Greater emphasis on content
– Authorship
• Greater emphasis on social
– Google+
• SEO has become more holistic
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