Over the last few days, there has been a lot of buzz about possible Google algorithm updates. And yes, it’s true that Google updates its algorithm every single day, often multiple times per day but this update seems to be significant. And moreover, it is confirmed by Google on March 13. 

Number 13’s infamy will probably explode even more now, but you need to know that the most recent Google Update started on 12 of March, continued in force on the 13 of March and the rankings fluctuation seems to continue as you’re reading this.

A Confirmed Google Broad Core Update

Leaving modesty aside, we did spot the update before Google making the official announcement and before all the buzz in the SEO world. No, we do not have psychic powers, but we do have a super powerful tool: cognitiveSEO Signals. 

While we are aware that search results are different around the world, in different regions, and in different languages, and changing search results is almost a Google trademark, the rankings fluctuations were really high on lots of countries. The daily updates that typically occur in SERP don’t compare to this one in any way. And this time, Google officials also confirmed what the data already told us.

This week, we released a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see these tweets for more about that:https://t.co/uPlEdSLHoXhttps://t.co/tmfQkhdjPL

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) March 13, 2019

Of course, a lot of buzz did not delay to appear on the social media channels, with people complaining about big high volatility as well as dropped traffic and drops. 

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Ian Fleming (the guy that wrote the James Bond series of novels and short stories) byword, but it’s somehow bitter funny how it applies to our current situation.

Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.

It’s clear that we cannot talk about coincidences at this point as people all over the places are facing rankings fluctuations. 

Seeing less Positions, Impressions and Clicks cut in half from countries where my site shouldn’t show up. Surely will see less bounces from total site =)@JohnMu @rustybrick @dr_pete pic.twitter.com/dlkVQrOy3u

— amagnacco (@amagnacco) March 13, 2019

Massive Drops in Search Position Examples

As we don’t like to take anything for granted, we researched and double-checked on real case studies to see how the current update impacted businesses from all over the regions. We used the cognitiveSEO Rank Tracker to easily check and analyze some keywords and their rankings. 

We found some massive drops in rankings on commercial keywords with high search volume. Below you can see some screenshots with just some the search position drops we’ve identified. 

We couldn’t find any increases in rankings for the moment, yet this doesn’t mean that increases didn’t occur. I’m sure that in the following days we’ll better understand how this update impacted the Google ranks and as the law of nature works when someone goes down, someone else goes up. 

We’ve done the research on several countries and languages to find out that Florida 2.0 is clearly a global update that affects websites regardless of the country, region or country. 

What is also important to notice is the amount of keywords websites have lost their rankings on. We’ve found just a few situations were the websites declined in SERP on just a few keywords. Most of the analyzed websites faced drops on half or maybe more than half of the keywords they were interested in ranking for. 

For the moment we cannot draw a conclusion on what the March 12 Google Update actually targeted: links, content, intent, all together, something else? There could be a commonality between the websites affected by this update, yet, further research needs to be done. But keep still, here at cognitiveSEO we are a bunch of geeks who like doing in-depth researches so most likely we’ll come back with more details on what Florida 2.0 is all about. 

How Can You Spot Google Updates Before Everybody Else

The truth is that Google doesn’t always disclose updates and algorithm changes. Or, being a bit nasty, we might say that Google rarely makes public its rankings updates. That’s why there is also a lot of buzz and confusion every time someone from the SEO world notices something out of place in SERP.

How did we find about the update before Google making any official statement?

It started with a mail. A notification actually from cognitiveSEO Signals, cognitiveSEO’s tool that spots Algorithm changes in real time.

Checking the tool on several countries, positions, and changes, we realized that there is actually something big going on and for sure the biggest fluctuation from the last 5 months for several countries like US, UK, Australia, India, several countries in Europe and so on.

What You Need to Do

The short answer is: it depends on who you’re asking.

If you’re asking Google, the answer you’ll get is :

There is nothing in particular to “fix,” and we don’t want content owners to mistakenly try to change things that aren’t issues. 

According to the same big G officials, a broad core update means that Google is not targeting any niche or any particular signals, like quality. In a broad core algorithm update, Google is not targeting anything. There’s no “fix” for pages that may perform less well other than to remain focused on building great content. Over time, it may be that your content may rise relative to other pages. And as with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded….

Of course, as with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. Yet, if you’re asking any SEO Pro or webmaster who is very concerned about his website ranking high, well it is hard to do nothing while your ranks are dropping. 

We are not saying that you should look for issues on your website where they are not, or to start changing stuff just for the sake of the algorithm update. Yet, there are some actions that you can take. 

• Check that your site is performing well from an on-site point of view

• Check how well optimized & relevant your content is

• Check your link profile

• Check your SERP positions

• Keep an eye on the Google Algorithm Updates

And yes, you can check everything by using only one tool: the cognitiveSEO toolset. 

Desktop vs Mobile Rankings Fluctuations

There is no secret that mobile searches in Google are constantly growing from one year to another. And therefore, Google’s interest on mobile search market is increasing as well. What is very interesting to notice is that when it comes to ranking fluctuations, the mobile SERP is way more volatile than the desktop one. 

If the current algorithm (named Florida 2.0) is the biggest Google fluctuation on desktop from the past five months, when it comes to the mobile market, the situation is completely different. Dozens of fluctuations and lots of volatility can be easily observed on the screenshots taken from the UK and USA mobile vs. the desktop search market. 

Why Is This Google Update Named March 2019 Core Update?

If you’re checking the WebmasterWorld Forum or read SEO Pros opinion on this Broad Core Update, you’ll see that it is referred to as the Florida 2.0.

Where is all that coming from? 

Well, Google Florida was the first major algorithm update and it was released in November 2003. This, of course, was the first significant update in what would become a decade filled with huge updates. Regardless of what it was called, Florida hit in the middle of the holiday shopping season targetted highly commercial terms. As you can imagine, lots of pages and businesses have been wiped out from Google’s SERP.

As you might tend to think that these two updates are similar in the way of rolling, what they actually have in common is the name. Google Updates were always given names by the search industry; it was not Google’s officials who named their updates Fred, Penguin or Panda.  And the Florida update was named this way due to the fact that it was released around Pubcon Florida SEO conference taking place. History repeats and with the update and the conference taking place in the same month, Florida 2.0 came naturally. 

Yet, the novelty came from Google this time as, to everybody’s surprise, the officials decided to name the update themselves; this is why this current update is called March 2019 Core Update. 

There is a long history on naming the Google Updates and the WebmasterWorld used to name them. Will this be the end of an era and will Google name their updates by themselves from now on? We’ll wait and see. 

How about you? Did you encounter any ranking or traffic fluctuation? Let us know in the comments below!

The post The Google March 2019 Core Update Is Rolling Out! Massive Rankings Fluctuations appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

“General Guidelines Version 3.27 – June 22, 2012”

I will not provide a link to this document, due to obvious reasons, but you can try to search, either on Google or the Social Media sites and you will probably find it.

What I will share with you in this post, is my opinion on the contents of this document.

The document is focused on

• identifying webspam (technical analysis – keyword stuffing,redirects etc/ authority of the blog,site/ commercial intent – thin affiliates)
• webpage rating (content type/ language/ flags)
• geo-location webpage rating (if a page is geographically related to the query)
• query (user intent rating)

Aproximately 60 pages talk about the “Rating Guidelines” and explain to the person that is going to be the rater the concepts. A few of them are:

• Understanding the Query
• Classification of User Intent: Action, Information, and Navigation – “Do-Know-Go”
• The Rating Scale
• Vital Pages for People Queries

The next 16 pages are about “URL Rating Tasks with User Locations”.

32+19 pages talk about “Page Quality Rating Guidelines” & “Rating Examples”.

Here is a screenshot of the Page Quality rating task page:

One particular thing that is really interesting, is an example about “Named Entity Queries”.

Snapshot talks by itself.

Part 5 (15 pages) of the document is about “Webspam Guidelines”.

This looks at things like:

• Technical Signals
• Fake vs Ok sites comparisons
• Commercial intent of webspam pages

The last chapter is about the EWQQ that evaluation system that the rater will use.

Part 7 and 8 are :

• Quick Guide to URL Rating
• Quick Guide to Webspam Recognition

To conclude this shows us that Google still uses an army of raters to train their algorithms and validate situations that the algorithm can not do by itself.

It is a pure user oriented view, from Google’s side and everything is related to the User Experience. This is used both for natural search and paid search but it seems they are mostly focused on the natural part.

Reading the document will provide both insight into the Google mindset and a technical view on some of the aspects of SEO.

The post Google Rating & Webspam Guidelines – 2012 Edition appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Yesterday Matt Cutts has confirmed that Google is indexing Ajax / Javascript.

Today we are announcing that cognitiveSEO is doing the same thing … but from an SEO point of view.

What are the “Link Previews” ?

In the past 12 months we have been working on a unique and powerful feature, called “Link Previews” (the actual geeky R&D name was “Visual Based Location”) .

To put it short :

cognitiveSEO “Link Previews” are practically Google Instant Previews for inBound Links.

We have developed a powerful and highly automatized visual crawler that can render any webpage (including Javascript/AJAX based ones … just like Google does) and has the ability to identify the position on the page of the inBound Links you are interested in. Our system will give you the full screenshot and then highlight the identified links on the page. We go further and check if the link is a Javascript Link or a Hidden Link.

This is pretty neat, as now you will be able to browse your backlinks visually.

Imagine that! Here is a visual preview:

The “Link Previews” identify where your inbound links are positioned and if the links are visible on the page. To be more exact, this is what our seo tool can tell us about a link:

• The Link is positioned in the Header of the page
  
• The Link is positioned in the Body of the page
• The Link is positioned in the Footer of the page
• The Link is Hidden or “Javascript Genererated”
  

It is important to mention that the visual renderer does this on a large scale for hundreds of thousands of links … and it works pretty damn quick, squashing every CPU cycle from the crawling machines.

5 outstanding things “Link Previews” can do for You

1. Fast Analysis & Browsing of Backlink Profiles

2. Find Hidden and Javascript Links (facebook comments for example)

3. Understand how many backlinks are positioned in the Header , Body or Footer of the page (you can do this for either your sites or your competitors)

4. Identify unnatural patterns in Backlink Profiles

5. Manage & Monitor your Links visually

In the following days we will update the blog with more outstanding features from the cogntiveSEO toolset. Stay tuned !!!

If you did not register yet for the cogntiveSEO Beta please do so. You will ne notified before anyone else when we launch this month.

What do you think about the “Link Previews” feature and concept ?

Let us know your thoughts and ideas. What other creative use cases would you find for the “Link Previews” ?

The post cognitiveSEO is Crawling Ajax – so does Google! appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Welcome to our weekly linkbuilding technique column! Back when I first started out to use the Internet around 1997 it was all about hypertext.

Hypertext, the interconnected text containing links where you do not have to structure reading in a linear way with numbered pages that follow each other. Instead you can use links like some wormholes to end up on the other end of the world within an instant. Links made a huge difference and we willingly embraced linking out as the early Web enthusiasts we were. I remember creating interactive “digital poetry” with links, frames and scripts.

Today the Web is not the same as back in the beginning. Many people and especially companies do not want to link out.

When they actually link out they make sure to make these links as worthless as possible for the linked to website by using nofollow attributes. In many cases just the URL gets mentioned so that you can’t even click on a link. I use an extra Firefox extension that allows me to open these non-links despite not being linked.

Clearly we experience a post-link Internet, post means after here, so it’s the Internet after the link.

Facebook is probably the most important factor in this paradigm shift: The like is not a real link anymore, it’s just a proprietary kind of vote other websites can’t see by default: You have to connect to Facebook to be able to read some aspects of the like data and you rarely will find out who actually likes you.

A link connects both ways, a website that has been linked can track who linked it and where from. This is particularly meaningful as this way a connection between two people is established. Liking on Facebook or even just mentioning an URL without linking to it allows you to stay in the dark. It also limits your connection, it becomes one way. So it’s not a real communicative act or a conversation.

In SEO for years we depended on links for our Google rankings. Also Google depended on them and was thus dependent.

Then Google shot itself in the foot by introducing the nofollow attribute with the other search engines. From now on Google couldn’t follow many of the most important links. For example the back in the days very important social bookmarking platform Delicious used nofollow and noindex on all of their content to hide it from Google.

Other sites like Twitter have introduced the attribute just on the links like Google suggested initially. Google wasn’t unable to check Twitter links from then on and had to buy access. Finally Google +1 votes have been introduced to allow Google a direct access to real time social graph data.

So today it’s very common to get links that are in one or more ways non-links:

1. nofollow-links
2. script/forwarded links
3. shortened links like t.co or bit.ly
4. not linked URL mentions
5. brand mentions
6. not indexed social bookmarks
7. Facebook likes
8. Google +1 votes

Real links like those we used to play with back in the nineties are a rarity by now. Even Google had to adapt as the Google+ and +1 development shows. They can’t rely solely on real links anymore. Some people already argue that or at least suspect that Google counts not linked brand and URL mentions and uses them as ranking signals as well.

In 2011 you can’t ignore non-links anymore. Some SEO practitioners still try to go after real links only. Such a site is by now obviously a SEO site a no other regular site with a healthy link profile has solely real links. Matt Cutts and Rand Fishkin are quick to weigh in that just a small percentage of links use nofollow. Around 1% or 2%. On the other hand almost all the important sites like Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious use nofollow on outgoing links.

You have to appear on these social sites in order to be on the Web today. A website without any mention on social media is either outdated or suspicious. While Google can’t index these sites it can see many of the links. Also third party services link Trunk.ly make them spiderable because people opt-in to use them and share their links.

One of the best ways to get links in the post-link Internet era is to connect with people like I suggested last time. You connect to a person and stay connected and the person will most probably “link” to you via different means, like social bookmarks, tweets, likes etc.

Each time you successfully connect with a person you lay the foundation for many links in the future.

The great thing about the Internet is that you do not even have to meet them in person. Of course it’s even better to know a person from face to face encounters but it’s much easier to reach out to people on the Web.

When you get a non-link you have to first find it and second contact the person responsible for it. You don’t need shiny tools to do so. Google search and email are enough for a start. Google Webmaster Tools and Blekko plus a free CRM tool like the one at Zoho are better. On the other hand complete a link building tool suite like ours can greatly improve your workflow and let you focus on the actual connecting.

A Google search like
cognitiveseo.com -site:cognitiveseo.com (insert your URL instead of ours)
can already reveal sites that mention your URL without linking especially when you use Google Blog Search.

The editors of these sites will be prone to giving you a real link. Just the other week a client of mine received a list of ten sites and their editors who have mentioned his URL without linking it: He got two links immediately which is a conversion rate of 20%. I asked him to send them an email and a note with some branded schwag (ball point pens etc.)

It’s not just an idea, it’s a proven technique. There are also ways to monitor social media mentions, Facebook likes etc. I may follow up on these in the near future. Or suggest another addition in the comments. Do you know other techniques to practice linkbuilding in a post-link Internet? Tell us!

*CC image by Hiroyuki Takeda.

The post How to Practice Linkbuilding in a Post-Link Internet appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Earlier this week one of my favorite link building blogs, SEER Interactive, has published a post on why Google +1 votes are not a good ranking signal. The post by Wil Reynolds recapitulates 10 years of history of ranking factors in search to make its point.

It all sounds very convincing unless that it is not true. The old school SEO thinking does not apply here in the case of Google +1 which rather has to do with social media than search. I’m far from a Google fanboy but the

+1 votes, especially now that Google has a social network built around them, have real potential to be the most significant ranking signal from now on.

You can’t compare the simplistic Snap.com model of “the more clicks the better positions in search results” to the complex Google +1 architecture.

The only thing both have probably in common is the click, everything else differs. First off, Snap.com apparently used clicks as one of the if not the most important factor. I don’t really know, I haven’t tried it back then. Anyways Google uses hundreds of ranking signals, at least 200 as officially announced a few years ago.

You didn’t have to log in back then, you just had to “spoof a browser”. For Google+ and +1 you have to use your real name and you have to log in to vote +1.

Wil Reynolds goes on to explain that you can pay fake or legit users to click +1 votes as well. That’s true. On the other hand the sheer amount of tasks to look legit he suggests is more than the amount of time and effort to create legit content and get real +1 votes as far as I can see:

• “Check in” using Google’s check in services once a week? Yes
• Add a new feed to their reader once a week? Yes
• Go into Google reader and read a few posts? Yes
• Buy something for 5 dollars from a web site once a month? Yes, and use Google checkout to do it (credit cards might be a qualifier).
• Upload a video to YouTube and get some views on it? Yes
• Go to YouTube and watch 1 video every 3 days, leave a comment once every 10 videos you watch? Yes.

This is quite a lot of  fuss to simulate a legit account.

Why do people cheat? They do because it’s less tedious, cheaper and faster than the real thing.

It has be all of it as the risk of getting caught is an obvious drawback when cheating. So why should I employ a dozen outsourced Indian puppets when I can pay the same people half the money to write great content and promote it instead?

Let’s assume that some people just cheat out of habit, yes there are some in the SEO game as far as I can see. Also let’s assume that even legit users will get bribed to click +1 votes. People buy links so they will but +1 votes as well. Assuming the above we have to ask ourselves whether Google will be able to count just the legit votes and spot the paid ones, or at least better than Google can spot paid links. As of now Google is still not very good at finding those. I agree with Wil Reynolds here.

Let’s take a look on how Google manages Google Profiles, Google+ and Google +1 votes to understand why +1 votes are probably the best ranking signal Google can get now that the hyperlink is not reliable anymore.

1. You have to be a real person using a real name.
2. Your friends and fans categorize you in their Google+ circles so that Google knows who you are, what the relationship is and on what topics you are an expert on.
3. You click +1 on third party websites and your own search results without really sharing it so that unlike on Digg or Twitter stuff doesn’t get pushed just because a friend recommends them. You push them up just for yourself.
4. Google+ /+1 does not allow automated voting or cross posting from other sites.
5. Google Profiles get connected to multiple other social media profiles and sites to verify your identity.

Can you spoof your family ties and lots of friends who engage with you? You could pay Asian outsourcing firms to do that but again this would be quite a lot of work. I also know that there are bots that do it on StumbleUpon and Digg. I have seen lots of fake profiles there. Even the US government is investing in sock-puppet software for a cyberwar to manipulate social media.

I’m quite optimistic though than Google is smarter than StumbleUpon and the Pentagon here. It can most probably separate the wheat from the chaff. This is why they are frantically deleting fake user accounts, they want keep Google+ uberclean to make sure the ranking signals do not get diluted. Why am I so sure that Google will get it? It’s personalization.

Personalization of search results based on data from numerous Google services will unmask fake users.

Google shows me results from sites I clicked the +1 button on top. It shows me results from Google Reader subscription in the top 10, I see sites on top that I have bookmarked years ago or shared on Twitter, Friendfeed or Quora. I also see stuff shared by others.

Can you spoof that? You can: You have to use Google search then and click these personalized results like a normal person would. Also your friends and family have to click these results and read them without bouncing. I know you could force Chinese political prisoners to do so like they already toil on virtual farms in games to make money for the corrupt regime. Some sadistic prison guards may come up with a similar scheme for SEO. Everyone else would spend tons of money to fake just a few dozens of real users or to pay real users to vote on +1.

Cheap plus votes can already to be bought by the hundred but how obviously fake are these votes?

What do you think? They are as fake as the 5000 links for 19$ packages you get offered on the Web. It’s not difficult to determine these links to be fake.

Paid links work beacuse they are difficult to find without actually looking at the sites and even then it’s difficult to prove that they got paid for. Fake Google Profiles and paid +1 votes on the other hand can be seen from afar. I’m pretty sure that you can track them algorithmically without having to resort to desperate measures like “report paid links” forms. You just have to find patterns in which the average real users use Google search and other services. Those who do not fit this pattern get either banned or their votes downgraded.

There are still some issues with Google +1 votes, no doubt.

Just an example: I was the second person to +1 the NASA homepage a week or two ago. Also I won’t +1 pages on medical, financial and political topics in many cases as I don’t want everybody who can see my Google Profile to know about my health and financial issues or political views. Last but not least sites that actively encourage +1 votes have many more of them than site that don’t. So not all websites and +1 votes are created equal.

Google has to count some votes more than others and I bet it already does.

A vote of Danny Sullivan counts a lot more than other votes. The more “real” you are and the more authority you have the better. You can’t fake trust. +1 votes are a trust based system. For links you can only count authority, on Google Profiles you can verify it. That’s why +1 votes are the most accurate ranking signal Google can get. It’s even better than other anonymous engagement metrics like bounce rates from search results etc.

* Partial screen shot from a site that sells Google +1 votes.

The post Why Google +1 Votes Are a Great Ranking Factor appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

• Black Hat SEO
• Grey Hat SEO
• White Hat SEO

The infographic below will give you a short overview on each of the concepts above. It will answer the questions below and more:

• What Hat do I Really Wear ?
• What Hat should I Wear ?
• What Risks am I exposed to using Black Hat / Grey Hat or White Hat SEO techniques?
• What tactics are involved in Black Hat / Grey Hat or White Hat SEO ?

The post Black Hat vs White Hat SEO – Infographic appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

“Content is king” is one of the widest spread Internet memes. Whether you agree or not you will see the phrase referenced all over the place. For several years Google was one of the most ardent supporters of the “content is king” philosophy.

Why does Google want you to “create great content” and lots of it?

In order to explain why I wanted to track the first mention of “content is king” just to find out that Bill Gates declared in January of 1996. Also Sumner Redstone of Viacom said it before Bill Gates. So Google is not the originator of the phrase. What’s even more interesting is not only who said it first but also in what context and why.

It seems the idiom “content is king” is even older than that.

On Google Book search you can find two books by historian A. Wyatt Tilby who had used the expression in 1914. The definition of content did not mean text, audio or video at that time but had the other meaning we still know as in “being content” or “satisfied”. This might sound positive today but back then it meant rather restrained or resigned. 

First, it was the term copywriter. That was generated from the term copy used for among printers and newspapermen for in the printed magazines and newspapers’ industry. “Copywriter” appeared around 1870 when a man who wrote advertisments began to be called copy writer to be distinguished by the news writer. Translated into Modernese, copywriter and copywriting become original writer and original writing/ original content.

The term “content marketing” appeared in 2001, when Penton Custom Media (at the moment Penton Marketing Services) started using it for a targeted audience online. Using the content marketing you can display the information in different types of format: news, podcast, blog post, infographics, charts, e-books, white-papers, email newsletters, case studies, how-to-guides, videos, interviews and so on. 

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that “content is king” originated during the heydays of the British monarchy.

Back when the king forced the people to be content as in “constrained” (restrained and contained) where the noun stems from. So content is basically what is contained somewhere according to etymology. We don’t have to follow the path back to the monarchy to recognize that the history of the phrase “content is king” is a bit older than the Internet itself.

Ruport Murdoch of News Corp is also cited as spreading the notion that “content is king”.

So we see that media moguls (or kings) like the notion that content is king. Whether it’s

1. Viacom
2. Microsoft
3. News Corp
4. Google

they all want to convince you that content is king. Why? It’s because they want that content to sell it. 

Content is king not only because it satisfies the people it also makes fortunes and media moguls happy. Just like the peasants of British North America who were satisfied in dire poverty because “content is king” not only the underpaid content farm workers struggle to make the content kings rich. Sumner Redstone tells us that the other side of the “content is king” debate was “distribution is king”. Today both is true. Bill Gates anticipates most of it. He explains that it will be difficult to earn real money online on content for years to come, at least for content creators.

Those who take your content and redistribute it earn the most money.

It’s the way with content farms and Google alike. The information gate keepers in the media corporations make most of the money by content, not the single content creators. So next time someone is saying “content is king” or something else “is king” make sure to remember where the content monarchy originally stems from and who wants to maintain it.

It’s obvious that creating lots of quality content can get compensated by attention, links and a bit of money as well.

You have to remind yourself that you are just the peasant on the content fields who toils mostly for others when you create content. Those who distribute and “tax” it by ads. Sometimes it seems like SEO was only about content creation by now.

SEO also works for sites that have only a few pages as well.

Ideally SEO does not rely solely on content. The others want you to create content forever. You try to work less on the fields and earn more money. Otherwise SEO would not exist anymore as a separate discipline.

Many thanks to social media strategist Andrew Burnett who pointed out the Google Book search I mentioned above on Twitter .

*CC Image by Peter Clark.

The post The Content Monarchy: Who Says “Content is King” and Why? appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

We hope the infographic below will help you better understand the Google “Panda” Effect that happened earlier this year.

The post What in the name of Google is a “Panda” – infographic appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

Like most average people out there Google hasn’t yet let me test the new social network Google+. Only tech pundits, influencers, social media mavens and other early adopters have been allowed to use G+ at the beginning.

Thus I have to trust their reviews of the Google+ service. Google’s tactic of allowing only cheerleaders in has seemingly paid off. Most reviews are positive. Why? There are different reasons. Let me cite some of them.

Gina Trapani of SmarterWare

what I appreciate most about Google+ is that it’s a well-thought out product informed by past experience. The more I use Google+, the more I see just how many lessons Google learned from Wave and Buzz

Lisa Myers on State of Search:

the BIG difference between facebook and Google + is that you can categorise your sharing. For me this is a BIG plus (haha get it? Plus), as I have a lot of things that I want to share with my SEO friends and colleagues but that I don’t necessarily want to share with my family and friends

Louis Gray:

Some first users of Google+ today commented about the similarities of it to FriendFeed, with nested comments, lists and real time at the core. But honestly, it’s the opposite. FriendFeed launched as a major aggregator, supporting dozens of sites. Google+ starts with just one. It’s refreshing.

Colin Walker:

I suggested that, unlike even Orkut or Buzz, +1 could be the first offering to really cement social in the mind of Google users and now, within the context of Plus, the +1 makes even more sense and is as simple to grasp and use as Facebook’s “Like” button

Sean Percival:

A major thing it has going for it is the UI and design. It’s really well done. Using Circles, Google’s way to sort and organize friends, makes Goodle+ very intuitive and even, dare I say, fun to use.

Nate Elliott from Forrester Blogs:

In fact, as a consumer I love the circles idea. One of the smartest things about Orkut when it launched 7 years ago was its recognition — then unique in social networking — that not every friend is equal. Google makes the point that in real life we don’t share the same information with everyone we know — and that our online social networks should work the same way as our offline ones. And that’s undoubtedly true

Mario Sundar of Marketing Nirvana:

Google Plus is a curious amalgam of Facebook and Twitter but more interestingly this is the same model that Friendfeed pioneered (with far slicker tools: “like” and “real-time feed” anyone).

Fred Wilson of AVC.com:

My dad might like Google+. It’s a lot like email. He can curate groups of friends; his friends from school, his friends from the army, his friends from the community he lives in, and share information with them quickly and easily

Ian Lurie of Conversation Marketing:

Facebook makes communicating with specific groups and lists of friends really, really difficult. Google has opted for a more open model: Google+ follows you around in Google-land, and Circles let you use any + feature but confine your message to specific groups of friends

Chris Brogan:

The key things going on inside Google+ so far are sharing stuff, where the interesting factor rules, and conversations, where the ability to keep an interesting and participatory conversation matters.

Jessica Van Sack of Biz Smart:

The great hope of many who begrudgingly use Facebook is that Google+ will have a better privacy policy (i.e. won’t change your settings without notice, won’t give your information to advertisers). If so, some privacy stalwarts may kill their Facebook accounts and switch to the nascent Google+ platform. To be sure, it’s a good platform. But that’s because it’s so much like Facebook.

Robert Scoble:

Come on now, we geeks and early adopters and social media gurus need a place to talk free of folks who think Justin Bieber is the second coming of Christ. That’s what we have in Google+ right now.

Liz Gannes on All Things Digital:

Google+ Solves the Social Privacy Problem by Making Friending Very Complicated

Greg Finn on Search Engine Land:

Facebook is often critiqued for their dubious privacy changes, and Google seems to be catering to those unhappy users with easy to use privacy options in one location.   Deleting an account is straightforward, so is deleting social features. This may appeal to some disgruntled Facebookers, drawing them  to use Google+.

Rob D Young on Search Engine Journal:

Google starts with a highly attractive design. Using their expertise in HTML 5 and, according to Bradley Horrowitz, “Andy Hertzfeld, the original Mac guy,” the Google+ team has created an interface that’s smooth, simple, and attractive.

So apparently there are plenty of good reasons to use Google+, at least for early adopters. To be honest I personally don’t like Google+. Why? I have been invited by at least a dozen people but each time I want to start to use it I get the same message that I can’t. Who is masochistic enough to endure such “user experience”?

I tried several times just because I need to use G+ for my work as a blogger and SEO. An average user would simply assume that it doesn’t work and probably never return.

* Image by Karl Randay

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