• Where Does SEO Fit In?
    It's important to know where SEO fits into the larger scheme of work going on at your company, writes Duane Forrester. It will determine whether you "Ra-Ra-Ra about SEO" or "quietly" work to weave the SEO strategy into other programs. Forrester suggests using data from PPC campaigns to help focus on keywords that convert into better query rankings or sales. That will give you some fodder for discovery. Forrester writes that "while you're doing all this poking around and soul searching, take a long hard look at how you are stack ranking the work you ask others …
  • One-On-One: Rand Fishkin
    Marty Weintraub goes one-on-one with Rand Fishkin, asking the tough questions about PageRank, evolution of open-rank tools, keyword research and targeting, PostRank, black hat and white hat SEO, and whether buzz tracking tools can be gamed. Fishkin, who Weintraub writes has turned SEOmoz into one of the most recognized brands in search, credits a host of supporters -- including his mom Gillian, along with Kelly Smith and Michelle Goldberg, who sit on SEOmoz's board of directors, for his success.
  • Google Launches AdWords Comparison Ads
    Google has launched AdWords Comparison Ads beginning with the mortgage industry. The tool lets users compare multiple offers. AdWords relies on targeting and relevancy signals to determine the best ads for each query, but sometimes a user's query doesn't provide enough information for Google to predict what he or she wants. A few of the new features shows targeted ads in less than a second, only shows real products, and won't send advertisers any user information, including "anonymized" phone numbers, unless users explicitly request more information about an advertiser's offer, writes Friedman. The features have rolled out to …
  • How To Score In SEO
    Stephan Spencer believes scoring is an important part of SEO. He notes that you can create your own algorithm, too: "an approximation of the search engine's own algorithm, one that teases out the various signals and accurately assesses the quality, relevance and importance of these signals without human intervention/assistance." Doing so will give you the most accurate system to score title tags, internal anchor text, keyword prominence, H1s, meta descriptions and more.
  • Eric Schmidt's Predictions
    What will the Internet look like in five years? That's one question Google CEO Eric Schmidt tried to answer at the Gartner conference in Florida this week. Among his predictions: Chinese-language content will dominate the Internet, and real-time information will be just as valuable as all other information. We may look five years into the future, but the precursor to the Internet turned 40 Thursday. On Oct. 29, 1969, the first message was sent across ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet.
  • Using PPC Campaigns To Bolster PR
    Marty Weintraub explores "the systematic use of paid channels like AdWords and Facebook ads" to intervene in "quickly moving public relations incidents." For example, what to do when, say, use of a product "results in a child's death and a product recall." Weintrab provides a system for handling a variety of such situations, starting with the "Keyword grid" -- in the case of the above example, "Branded terms, 'child's name,'" and cause of death.
  • Google's Sometimes-Tainted Push To Move Beyond Search
    In Google's campaign to move beyond search, sometimes the company "seems unbelievably savvy" while at other times it seems "unbelievably conflicted," writesAaron Wall. He points to examples of the search giant "promoting Google Base / Google Product Search more aggressively in [its] navigation and organic search results" and seeming to jigger with results returned for eBay queries.
  • Conference Survival Tips
    For those headed to Pubcon, Dr. Pete has a few survival tips. He writes that three days full of sessions can get a bit crazy. Not to mention the "sponsored parties, being dragged around Vegas by crazy people, topped off by a full afternoon of even more drinking (just in case you somehow managed to forget where the 'pub' in PubCon came from)." Among the tips (which conference-goers can apply to any event, are planning wjocj sessions you'll attend, rounding up a posse, staying hydrated, bringing a sweater, buying a power adapter, staying in tune with the controversies, …
  • Why Did Google Penalize My Site?
    In a YouTube hosted by Matt Cutts, he answers the question Alice C from Los Angeles asks: "If it appears that your site has been penalized in SERP position, but you have done nothing wrong and cannot diagnose what the problem is, how do you proceed?" Cutts recommends some basic tactics to try, including "make sure that your site isn't hacked."
  • Google Rolls Out Musical Search
    At a Hollywood event Wednesday, Google rolled out the "Music Onebox" as a way to improve the experience for people searching for music on its search engine. The search tool will allow people to stream all or part of a song from the results page through a partnerships with several online music providers. Murali Viswanathan explains how the service works. He writes that the idea is to help people find new music.
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