The Mindset that Makes Online Marketing Work

Apr 23, 2013 at 9:15am ET by Brian Clark

When I started publishing online back in 1998, I didn't have a shred of traditional marketing experience. It may sound counter-intuitive, but that ended up giving me a huge advantage. The first marketing book I read was Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing in 1999, which sparked my "aha" moment regarding how the Internet worked from a marketing standpoint. Godin made it clear that the Internet was a direct-response environment that required an evolved form of direct marketing. You didn't buy mailing lists. You built audiences. Likewise, my company, Copyblogger Media, began a [...]

Infographic: Video Content, Especially On YouTube, Wins In Google Universal Search

Mar 29, 2013 at 9:00am ET by Marketing Land Infographics

Google Universal Search is a way that Google blends in matches from its "vertical" or "specialty" search engines, like image search or video search, into webpage results. What's the best way to tap into Universal Search in order to be visible? Have video content, especially on YouTube, according to a new study. The study, by Searchmetrics, is covered in more detail by our sister-site Search Engine Land. Searchmetrics also produced an infographic summarizing the key findings (click to enlarge): As you can see, video content is far more likely to be blended into the search results than [...]

Chrome To Gain Search Encryption, Following Similar Moves By Firefox & Mobile Safari

Jan 18, 2013 at 2:09pm ET by Danny Sullivan

The wave of browsers using Google SSL Search -- and thus blocking publishers from receiving search term data -- continues. Google's own Chrome browser is next up, with the latest Chrome 25 beta using encryption. Google shared the news on its Chromium blog today. Chrome follows in the footsteps of Firefox and mobile Safari, which added encryption last year. Our stories below have more background on that: Firefox 14 Now Encrypts Google Searches, But Search Terms Still Will “Leak” Out How An iOS 6 Change Makes It Seem Like Google Traffic From Safari Has Disappeared The Safari [...]

Dark Google: One Year Since Search Terms Went “Not Provided”

Oct 19, 2012 at 9:05am ET by Danny Sullivan

A year ago, Google began going dark. Dark in terms of no longer sharing with publishers, in some cases, how people searched for and found those publishers through Google's search engine. The "single digit" percentage of withholding that Google predicted at the time has turned into more than 50%, in some cases. If Google's withholding were an eclipse, more than half the sun is being covered. "Dark Google" is upon us, and it will only grow darker. I'm drawing the term "Dark Google" as a play off the "Dark Social" concept that Alexis Madrigal wrote about recently in The Atlantic. Dark Socia [...]

The Return Of The Google Dance

Sep 20, 2012 at 9:15am ET by Danny Sullivan

Old timers in the SEO world will remember the "Google Dance," if not fondly, at least with some nostalgia. It was when Google's rankings went through a change each month, sometimes dramatically, when a new algorithm was launched. The Google Dance eventually disappeared. Who'd have thought it would ever return? But it sure has, and we're likely to be dancing even more. The Days Of The Google Dance The Google Dance took its name from how the results at Google seemed to "dance" around when it unleashed a new search algorithm -- Google's recipe for ranking web pages -- on the world. A sear [...]

Google Bows To Pressure, Will Penalize Sites Accused Of Copyright Infringement

Aug 13, 2012 at 2:16pm ET by Matt McGee

Beginning this week, Google will be penalizing certain sites that are frequently accused of violating copyright laws. In a blog post Friday morning, Google explained the change this way: Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.... Rights groups such as the Recording Industry Association of Americ [...]

Penguin’s Reminder: Google Doesn’t Owe You A Living, So Don’t Depend On It

May 1, 2012 at 1:29pm ET by Danny Sullivan

It's one of the most important rules of search engine optimization. Don't depend solely on SEO. Especially don't depend solely on Google, the largest of the SEO sources. I'm always surprised when people fail to learn this lesson. Those hit hard by last week's Penguin Update are just the latest to learn it again. Consider some of the reactions, which are often filled with blame toward Google, or belief that there's some type of secret agenda (or two or three) behind the move or views that Google is now so "broken" with bad results that people will flock to Bing: 1) Some months ago someone [...]

Google’s New Anti-Spam Algo Causing Anger, Frustration Inside Marketing Industry

Apr 25, 2012 at 3:02pm ET by Matt McGee

If the 130+ comments on Search Engine Land's article are any indication, search marketers are reacting with a mix of frustration and anger toward the anti-spam algorithm change that Google announced yesterday. Many search marketers are saying low-quality sites are continuing to do well in Google's search rankings, and sometimes even having better visibility than before Google's changes. Search marketers probably won't understand anything more after seeing a first "preview" list of winners and losers from SearchMetrics, a company whose visibility index has pretty accurately identified win [...]

Is Google’s “Over Optimization Penalty” Its “Jump The Shark” Moment In Web Search?

Mar 27, 2012 at 9:30am ET by Danny Sullivan

The wolves are attacking Google again over its search quality. Last year, they were fed the Panda Update to fend them off. This year, Google may throw an Over Optimization Penalty to the pack. No, that doesn't mean SEO is dead once again. But it may sadly confuse SEO with spam. It also doesn't mean the penalty will improve Google's results. Google already has problems enforcing all the other penalties it has rolled out over the years. Jumping The Shark "Jump the shark" is a reference to a Happy Days episode where The Fonz did a water ski jump over a shark. It was later seen as a mil [...]

Unruly Sends New Guidelines To Partners To Help Avoid Google Penalties

Jan 31, 2012 at 2:16pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Remember how Google ended up penalizing its Chrome browser in its own search results because of a sponsored video campaign that violated Google's own paid link guidelines? The company behind that campaign, Unruly, has now emailed instructions to those in its network to help prevent that type of thing from happening again. How Google Penalized Itself With Unruly's Help Unruly was hired by Essence, which in turn was hired by Google to help promote the Google Chrome browser through video ads. The campaign that emerged had a video about Google Chrome appearing in posts that had little to do wit [...]

An Inside Look At What Google’s Search Quality Raters Do

Jan 21, 2012 at 9:27am ET by Matt McGee

One of the long-standing myths about Google's search results is that they're completely computer-generated with no human input or involvement whatsover. But, since at least 2005, Google has had a program that involves regular searchers reviewing the quality of their search results. There are several different job titles involved, but the people who get paid to review Google's search results are commonly called Quality Raters. Their work has largely been a mystery over the years, but over on Search Engine Land, we've just published what might be the first of its kind -- an interview with [...]

Google Algorithm Tweak Targets Pages With Too Many Ads Over Content

Jan 20, 2012 at 2:21pm ET by Matt McGee

If you publish web pages that might be considered too heavy with ads "above the fold," be warned: Google has announced an algorithm update that aims at ad-heavy content. Google calls it the "page layout algorithm," and says the change is based on complaints from users that are unhappy with having to scroll to find the actual content on the page and mainly seeing ads, instead. But as is often the case, Google isn't providing any specific guidance on how many ads above-the-fold are too many. On the other hand, they do say that the algorithm change will impact less than one percent of gl [...]

Will Google Have To Ban Itself For Buying Links?

Jan 3, 2012 at 1:14am ET by Matt McGee

Google has created quite a stir with what appears to be a sponsored blog posts campaign over the holidays -- a campaign that may have led Google to gain inbound links as part of the paid blog posts. And, if that's what happened, it raises the possibility that Google might have to ban itself for violating its own guidelines against paid links. Danny Sullivan's article on Search Engine Land, Google's Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome, has the details about a campaign that seems to have led to hundreds of blog posts in late December (many from "mommy blog" sites) that are suppose [...]

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