Over the weekend, it was confirmed that Google has updated their Google Penguin algorithm. Or, at least while I write this, Google apparently is still in the process of updating it. So, if your website was previously hit by the Google Penguin algorithm, then there is a chance that your site may recover if you’ve truly cleaned up your site’s links. [Read more…]
According to many SEOs in the industry, who are trusted sources, the Google Penguin algorithm is being updated as I write this post. There are reports that some are seeing organic ranking increases as high as 30 to 40 places from previous rankings. As you might recall, John Mueller from Google reportedly said that there would be a Penguin refresh by the end of the year. [Read more…]
Last week, on September 26th, I presented at the Little Rock Tech Fest, held in Little Rock, Arkansas. The topic was SEO for Web Developers or simply SEO for Developers. The site UserGroup.TV was there, and recorded just about all of the presentations and put them online. If you weren’t at the conference, or were unable to see my session, then you can watch the video right here on the web. [Read more…]
Tonight is the night! This evening, at the Globe Runner offices in Addison, Texas (North Dallas area), we’re holding our first-ever advanced link training seminar. If you’re an online marketer, search engine optimization professional, business owner, marketer, or even a Public Relations professional and am responsible for websites, then you need to attend this event tonight.
At the Advanced Link Training seminar, we’ve teamed up with Majestic SEO and DFWSEM to provide the latest linking techniques, even from the very basic link issues to some advanced techniques that I’m sure you’ve never heard of. And since Google has been penalizing websites left an right these days for links, it’s important to know what you need to do in order to clean up a website’s links. [Read more…]
Apparently it doesn’t matter, whatsoever, how many links to your site you have. Even if you have 8 links pointing to your website, if those links are inorganic or violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, the site can still receive a manual penalty from Google. [Read more…]
Ever since I’ve started using Wordfence here on my site, which has been at least for a year or so now, I have been a big fan. I use the paid option, and am very happy with it. But since I’ve been making major enhancements on the site lately, like upgrading the site from HTTP to HTTPS, and starting to use Cloudflare, I’ve seen improvements all around.
Today, though, I decided to test out the Wordfence Performance Setup option, called the Wordfence Falcon Engine, which apparently is supposed to increase the performance (load time) of your pages by 30 to 50 percent. Seriously? Up to 50 percent faster load times with this enabled? Even for an HTTPS site? I thought I’d give it a try. [Read more…]
There’s been a lot of chatter lately about whether or not sites should move their sites from HTTP to HTTPs. In fact, there apparently was a study done that said that apparently proved that you should not move from HTTP to HTTPS because there’s no benefit. Well, all I can do is continue to report my specific results for this site, on www.BillHartzer.com, and show you my data. [Read more…]
I rarely disagree with advice given by authors of articles that appear on Search Engine Land, but in this case, I wholeheartedly, and undeniably, disagree with some recent advice about HTTP and HTTPs sites. In a recent article, Daniel Cristo recommended that “if you’re running a blog, brochure site, news site, or any sort of information site where users don’t provide you with any personal information, I would recommend not using HTTPS.” He provides several reasons, which are completely false and unjustified, and generally gives advice that I disagree with. [Read more…]
My first advanced link training seminar, which I am running, will be held in Dallas on Thursday, September 25, 2014. In conjunction with Globe Runner, Majestic SEO, and DFWSEM, I will be talking about links, link acquisition, link cleanups, and even more about links. Did I mention that this is advanced link training about links? [Read more…]
In Google Webmaster Tools, there is a useful report called the Search Queries report. This report shows your website’s impressions in Google organic search, the clicks to your website, and the average position (of your ranking). Typically, I review this repor from time to time, but I don’t necessarily look at it as often as I look at Google Analytics. What should you do if your impressions and clicks go down drastically? Perhaps like this:
Exactly one week ago, I moved my site from HTTP to HTTPS, making my whole entire site serve up content securely. As you may recall, Google officially came out and said that HTTPS is a search engine ranking signal now. One week after I moved the site, here is an update. Overall, traffic from Google organic search is up 9.58 percent. And the overall quality of the traffic is much better, as well. [Read more…]
Due to Google’s recent official announcement that an https site is a search engine ranking factor, I’ve decided to move my site, BillHartzer.com, to https from http. Just to see if I can get a better rankings for the pages on my website. Currently, I do not accept any sort of payment for the content that I write here on my site, so that’s not the reason I’m moving the site from http to https.
Trust is the biggest factor in my decision to change from http to https, and that’s one major way you can get a higher visibility in web search. My web host, HostDime, offers secure certificates at a very reasonable rate, which is $30 per year for a basic certificate. It’s good for www and non-www. [Read more…]
I am not sure if this is something that has been done on purpose or not, but Google has removed the Google Authorship stats that were previously available in Google Webmaster Tools.
The page, which was previously located here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/labs-author-stats-1 is now showing a 404 error:
Danny Goodwin, the Editor of Search Engine Watch, is leaving Incisive Media. Mr. Goodwin has been at Search Engine Watch since 2007, and is going to work for LinkDex. This was first announced on Webcology this afternoon on WebmasterRadio.FM. [Read more…]
Google Local, now known officially as Google My Business, has to deal with what they call “industry spam rings”, which are plaguing Google’s local listings like a virus. And as a result, they’ve changed their internal policies in order to deal with these industry spam rings. Google is, in some cases, manually going to a location to confirm the NAP data and make sure that they serve customers at that location.
I recently met with an unidentified source who is very familiar with the inner workings at Google Local. He explained to me that Google is ver aware of “industry spam rings”. That’s the exact words that the Google employees have called this issue. The industries involved in the industry spam rings are: [Read more…]
Google added the “Irrelevant keywords” section to the sidebar of the Google Quality Guidelines. This section, called “Irrelevant keywords“, details the practice of keyword stuffing, and gives specific types of examples of where it is being used today is worth noting.
As you can see in the previous sidebar of the Google Quality Guidelines section of Google’s support, there was no page titled “Irrelevant keywords”: [Read more…]
That’s actually a great question. Someone recently entered that question into Google and, because I’ve written about link removals before, they found my blog. So, I decided to go ahead and answer that question. I’m sure there are others that would like to know if it’s safe to do so.
I just got ahold of the latest copy of Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, with a date of March 2014. It’s an interesting read, all 160 pages of this document. There are a lot of new phrases and concepts that are included in this latest version, but honestly there’s are really not many new surprises. But, if you’re in the online marketing business, are an SEO, or own a website, then you really should take a look at the latest guidelines, if just to make sure that your website or your client’s website(s) are compliant with Google’s latest Quality Rater guidelines. There may be some things that you can improve, I’ve found a few things that I’m going to pay attention to from now on when I perform complex SEO Audits for clients. [Read more…]
As a part of my commitment to folks in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to help provide more search engine optimization knowledge, I’m teaming up with Majestic SEO (I’m one of their Brand Ambassadors), and Globe Runner (I’m a Senior SEO Strategist) to provide advanced link building training. [Read more…]
In 2014, is it still okay to participate in a free link exchange? That’s what I had to ask myself today when I received an email that proposed a free link exchange amongst “our websites”. I have to admit that I found this email rather odd. Especially given the fact that people just aren’t sending out these unsolicited emails anymore. But still, I had to ask myself, “technically speaking, are free link exchanges still acceptable?”
