What is Google+? And Who Uses it?

By Melissa Fach on December 7, 2012

Many people are still confused over what Google+ is and how important it can be. The infographic below, by Search Engine People, breaks down the basics and tells you why it is an important social network for you and for your business. It also breaks down the demographics of those that use Google+.

Search agencies, this is a great IG to use to help explain Google+ and Google Local to clients. The demographic information is valuable because it helps clients understand who they might be targeting on G+ with various marketing campaigns.

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Can Little Guys Survive Google’s Commercial Intent?

By Jayson DeMers on October 29, 2012

Is Google making search better with all their recent changes? If you ask 100 people, you’re probably going to get 100 different answers.

But there is a lot — and I mean a lot — of evidence to suggest that Google’s real intention may be to increase their bottom line. Do you think it’s coincidental that such major changes have come just prior to the holiday shopping season?

The FTC has taken notice, too. Here’s a quote from a NY Times article:

“The areas of inquiry include accusations of manipulating the search results it displays to favor Google commerce services it has developed like Google Shopping for buying goods and Google Places for advertising local restaurants and businesses. In the civilian subpoenas, the F.T.C. calls this ‘preferencing.’ “

Limited Search Results

There are a number of ways that Google is limiting the kinds of results you get from a search. They say that all these changes will improve the user experience and provide valuable search results. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it isn’t. If it is, something’s very wrong.

Maybe the fact that you often get multiple search results from the same domain is simply because the other domains didn’t make the cut in terms of “quality content.” Or maybe, like many people believe, it’s just one more way to push revenue.

How? Well, if you’re constantly struggling and can’t seem to get any Google love anymore, maybe you’ll turn to their PPC (pay per click) ads instead. Just possibly, Google’s hoping that when you get frustrated with the organic search results, you’ll start clicking on the ads more often. [Read more...]

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Implementing Schema.org Microdata

By Dawn Wentzell on June 9, 2011

Last week, Google, Bing and Yahoo announced collaboration on a single standard for structured markup. Yes, I’m talking about Schema.org and utilizing Microdata for “Rich Snippets.”

Since then, many sites have posted about why Schema.org might be good, bad or otherwise for site owners; some balanced, some not. Personally, I think structured markup and machine-readable information is always good to have on your site, regardless of potential SEO benefits. I’ve had a love for structured markup (in the form of Microformats) since I first laid eyes on hCard several years ago. I could have written a whole post about why I think Schema.org is good for SEO, but instead I decided to implement it on a site of mine.
[Read more...]

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Location-Based Data: The Next Frontier for Local Search?

By Dawn Wentzell on May 17, 2011

When Google released their new Local search results format in October, 2010, SEOs quickly determined that the number of reviews and overall rating associated with a business were ranking factors. They also predicted that these would be quickly be gamed.

It was an easy ranking factor to launch the new integrated SERPs with, as they already had piles and piles of review data from their own properties as well as sites they’d partnered with. But Google’s algorithms are not static, and it couldn’t be too long before the Local algorithm included other ranking factors.

Now, it looks like they might be starting to think about other options. A paper submitted to the upcoming Very Large Data Bases conference, on Hyper-Local, Directions-Based ranking and written by two Googlers along with two other researchers, proposes a method for using direction queries…say, of the sort a user might enter into Google Maps…to determine interest in particular places that could possibly be used for ranking such places.
[Read more...]

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Local Results Updated

By Chase Granberry on November 23, 2010

After the latest local changes Google made to the search results we had a lot of updates to do with regards to how we process the local results. Those updates are now live and have been for a few days. Here’s an overview on how we parse each kind of local search result we’re getting served. We’re currently getting served three different types: the old style, the newest integrated style, and another style similar to the old style only the text that preceeds that pack starts with “Places for…”.

We’ve had a few questions on exactly how we plan on calculating rankings with these new results and why. Basically we try and make the “rank” reflect where that site would actually be located within a traditional search results page. [Read more...]

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Data Collection With Google Spreadsheets

By Brian LaFrance on September 28, 2010

Here at AuthorityLabs, we really like to play with data. Whether it’s checking website rankings or tracking indexed pages, we’re crunching a ton of data all day, every day. Recently, we’ve started playing with some features in Google Spreadsheets that seem to have an almost endless possibility for collecting and manipulating data. Using the functions for external data, we’ve put together a list with a few ways to help speed up common tasks related to SEO. While it’s not a new feature, I think it’s probably underused. [Read more...]

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