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…]
Moving to HTTPS for a Better Search Engine Ranking
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…]
Google Authorship Statistics Have Been Removed
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 Leaving Search Engine Watch as Editor
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…]
Industry Spam Rings Plague Google Local, Cause Problems
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 Irrelevant Keywords Section In Quality Guidelines
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…]
Is It Safe to Pay a Bookmarking Site to Remove Links with PayPal?
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.
Google Quality Rater Guidelines 2014
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…]
Now Offering Advanced Link Building Training
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, Are Free Link Exchanges Still Acceptable?
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?”
How to Post Articles on LinkedIn
Since there has been a lot of talk and controversy in the SEO community about guest blogging, and how guest blogging is either dead or not dead, a lot of people have been looking for other platforms where they can post their articles. Well, now there is a great new platform (site) where you can post article: LinkedIn.
Appalling: US Patent US8515941 B1: System for Generating Search Engine Spam
US Patent US8515941 B1 granted Aug 20, 2013, is titled “System for unique automated website generation, hosting, and search engine optimization”. And their websites still rank well in Google despite Google Panda 4.0.
It’s pretty rare that I out another SEO firm or company (okay, well maybe not). But this one really has me fuming this time. So blatant that they have been awarded a patent for creating web (search engine) spam. And apparently they’re pretty proud of the fact that their automated generation of websites and “invisible content” that’s read only by search engines that they tout it in their sales literature. [Read more…]
During Link Cleanup, Don’t Forget Links to Redirected Domain Names
One of several search engine optimization tasks that I am involved with is cleaning up a website’s link profile. Doing a link cleanup. With the Google Penguin algorithm update affecting so many websites, I have personally be involved in cleaning up a LOT of websites’ link profiles. So much so that I’ve quickly become the resident expert at cleaning up link profiles. This also involves cleaning up link profiles because websites have been manually penalized by Google because of unnatural and inorganic links pointing to a website. [Read more…]
How Google Brought SEO Back to the United States
During my participation at the Pubcon SFIMA Conference in Fort Lauderdale last week, William Leake mentioned something that I have not realized before. In fact, it’s probably my biggest takeaway from that conference: [Read more…]
This Has to Be the Worst Excuse for Charging for Link Removals
One of the tasks that I help website owners with is cleaning up their website’s backlinks. If a site has been penalized by Google, or the website has been penalized by the Google Penguin algorithm update, then it’s necessary to take the time to try to get the low quality and toxic links that are pointing to your website removed. I have actually a pretty good response rate when it comes to contacting the site owners. Many are very helpful and will remove links if you ask politely. [Read more…]
5 CRO Tips That Can Also Help with SEO
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) and search engine optimisation (SEO) are like two sides of the same coin. It’s all very well spending hours on SEO, but without including a sound strategy for CRO what’s it all for? Conversion goals vary from increasing click-through rates and sales to getting visitors to perform functions like calling a number, subscribing to a newsletter or downloading something in exchange for an email address. Lots of traffic doesn’t automatically equate to an increase in conversions, but by optimising the one you can and should look to improve the results of the other. Here are 5 CRO tips that will help with help with SEO and web content at the same time: [Read more…]
3 Great Safe Alternatives to Guest Blogging
Guest blogging for SEO purposes started its downfall recently, especially with Google penalizing MyBlogGuest, and before that it was Google finding and penalizing advertorials. And before that, it was paid links in general. It’s not that Google’s against those advertising vehicles, it’s that they don’t want SEOs and website owners manipulating their algorithm, gaming the system so to speak, and “buying links that pass PageRank“. And now, if it’s paid, we all know that it’s not just Google’s problem: the United States FTC has also spoken up. [Read more…]
I’m an Official Majestic SEO Brand Ambassador
I’m really excited about officially joining the Majestic SEO Ambassador program, and to have been accepted by the folks at Majestic SEO. I’ve been a proud user of Majestic SEO for many years now. [Read more…]
Google Penguin Recovery: Site Owner Doesn’t Know About Resources Page on His Site
I spend a few hours each day helping site owners and business owners recover from the dreaded Google Penguin algorithm update. I thought that I had received crazy emails from site owners who don’t know how to update their website. But it’s also amazingly hilarious to me when I run into a site owner who doesn’t even know that certain pages exist on their website. [Read more…]
Why This Website Owner Won’t Remove a Low Quality Link
Wow, I now have heard it all. Seriously. There are reasons why website owners will not remove a link from their low quality website to your website when asked, but this one really takes the cake. For a little background, I routinely help website owners clean up the links to their website as part of my Google Penguin Recovery services. Not only do I identify low quality and toxic links to websites, I help remove those links from the web. [Read more…]