First it was Google Panda, and then we had Google Penguin. For the past several years, we have been dealing with pandas and penguins. But now, we’re dealing with a whole entirely new animal: the Google Hummingbird algorithm update. [Read more…]
Facebook Acting More and More Like a Search Engine
Is it just me, or is Facebook acting more and more like a search engine, crawling all sorts of URLs. More than they have in the past. Facebook is acting more and more like a search engine every single day. Here is a perfect example: [Read more…]
Study Google+ Ripples to See Why Posts Go Hot
Just recently, another one of my Google+ posts went hot on the Google Plus social media network. As you know, Google Authorship is tied directly to Google+, and it’s my opinion that the more of an influencer that you are on Google+ the more it will ultimately help your Google Authorship. And then when you post on your own site or even post on other sites your content will ultimately do better and be seen by more people if you’re active on Google Plus. [Read more…]
Google Not Provided Keeps Going Up
The data that Google is not providing, as in they are not providing which keyword brought visitors to your site, keeps going up. And it’s getting bad. Really bad if your site caters to the tech crowd. For example, for my blog on BillHartzer.com, the posts and articles on the site cater mostly to other webmasters and perhaps business owners. The more tech-savvy ones. And for my blog, the latest number of not provided users to hit the blog from Google organic search is now 71.80 percent (the past 20,000 visitors to the site via Google organic search). [Read more…]
OOPS! Altavista Gone, But Only Temporarily?
Altavsita, one of my favorite 1990s search engines, has been put out to pasture so to speak. Altavista.com now redirects to a page on Yahoo.com. But, mistakenly, it looks like Altavista is only temporarily being redirected to Yahoo!. [Read more…]
FTC Sends Letter to Search Engines Regarding Paid Ads Versus Natural Search Results
The FTC has sent a letter to many of the major search engines, including AOL, Ask.com, Bing, Blekko, DuckDuckGo, Google, and Yahoo!, as well as 17 of the “most heavily trafficked search engines that specialize in the areas of shopping, travel, and local business, and that display advertisements to consumers” warning them about making the distinction between paid ads and natural search results. [Read more…]