This post was written by Luke Glassford.
It’s obvious, because the name ‘Luke Glassford’ appears in the author byline bit at the top of the post.
But maybe this post wasn’t written by Luke Glassford. Maybe it was written by someone else and was just published by Luke Glassford.
Maybe that ‘someone else’ is one of these evil black hat ‘guest posters’ that Matt Cutts has been telling off recently. (more…)
So, Google have finally rolled-out a toolbar PageRank update today – the first this year.
As well as it raising more questions about whether Matt Cutts can actually be trusted on anything (he said a few weeks ago that a 2013 PageRank update would be highly unlikely), today’s update also got me to thinking – does anyone really care about PageRank anymore?
Sure, I use it quite regularly as a quick metric when researching link prospects etc… but it’s certainly not the only metric I use and I don’t think my work in SEO would be in any way affected if PageRank didn’t exist. I definitely would never use it as a metric to track, base strategies around and obsess over – and I think the industry as a whole is coming round to that way of thinking. (more…)
One of the many problems facing SEO’s these days is how to carry out effective keyword research.
With [not provided] now accounting for about 80-90% of organic keyword data in Google Analytics, we’re effectively working blind when it comes to trustable data on what search terms are being used.
There are lots of ways to shed light on keyword data – from studying the landing page data in Analytics to relying on data from Bing/Yahoo and using the search query reports in Google Webmaster Tools (which are ridiculously rubbish if you ask me). (more…)
After using Google’s Keyword Tool for several years I had developed quite a slick and effective keyword research process – allowing me to quickly identify good [exact match] phrases for SEO campaigns. It wasn’t the only keyword research tool I used, but it was the one I used the most and found most effective.
So when Google announced they were replacing it with something called the Keyword Planner, I was both anxious and intrigued. It’s never good as an SEO to rely too heavily on one tool or process, so I welcomed the arrival of a new tool to play with. The worrying part for me though was the danger of a fiddly new tool taking a big slice out of my day to do a task that I had managed to streamline and scale so well. (more…)
I was away at Glastonbury last week (yes, even I get to have some days off!), so I missed an edition of You Are What You Read unfortunately. Not to worry though, as there has been the usual high volume of quality SEO tips, advice and news to catch up on this week – so let’s dive straight in… (more…)
Kicking off this week’s roundup is not one but two communications from the Googleplex. First off they sounded the death-knell for ‘link building’ by changing the wording on their fabled webmaster guidelines, replacing the instructions for webmasters to increase ‘the number of high quality sites that link to their pages’ with instructions to create ‘high-quality sites that users will want to use and share’ (here’s Search Engine Land’s take on it: http://searchengineland.com/google-changes-ranking-advice-says-build-quality-sites-not-links-163931) (more…)
Far be it for me to bring attention to my own good luck in the Google News results, but I thought the below example was a good indicator that Google still adds weight to the keywords that appear in a domain name.
Here’s the screen shots:
Notice the difference? (more…)
I get asked quite often how I manage to keep up with what’s going on in the SEO/online marketing world. There’s no secret to it really – I subscribe to about 70 SEO-specific blogs/sites and about 100 tech-related ones on Feedly, and surf through those feeds about 4-5 times a day. While I’m running through them, I either read interesting-looking articles there and then or use the ‘Save For Later’ button to erm… save it for later. I also use Pocket to save any good guides that I think I might need in the future (which is much better and easier than cluttering up my browser bookmarks bar).
On that subject, there was interesting news from Facebook this week – who announced a ‘secret’ press conference for next week. It didn’t take long for the secret to get out though, as John Constine reported on Techcrunch – Facebook are building a news reader: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/14/facebook-reader/. I wonder if Google are regretting killing Reader yet!? (more…)
With the latest search market share figures out, and the recent redesign’s of both Yahoo and Blekko’s search results, I thought it might be good to run a quick comparison of the main search engines results pages to see which is actually best.
The search engines I’ve chosen to compare are Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Blekko, and have compared their results on three different types of popular queries:
As we start to look towards a new week, here’s a quick roundup of all the best news and views from the past week in the SEO world….
What the…!?
The world suddenly, and frighteningly, became aware of PRISM this week. No need to go into too much detail as I’m sure everyone’s familiar with it by now, but here’s Google’s flat-out denial of any involvement in it: http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/what.html
Lots more Google-based news… (more…)
Luke Glassford 