It’s been another busy week in the world of Search Engine Optimisation, the recent changes Google has been making now have a codename “Google Penguin” the successor to “Google Panda”. Personally I was hoping for Google Pterodactyl but it wasn’t to be!
This is a round up of the main stories of the week as they happened from my tweets @charlesbarsley
23rd April
Faking A Breadcrumb Trail To Stand Out On Google http://searchengineland.com/faking-a-breadcrumb-trail-to-stand-out-on-google-119277
Starting the week with an interesting article from searchengineland about breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are not only used on your site to help navigate users but google can also pick up breadcrumbs and use them in place of the url in search results. This post gives an example of a site which has inserted “5 Star Rated” into the breadcrumbs which gives the impression that Google is rating this result! This is clearly an abuse of Rich Snippets and google has released a rich snippets spam reporting tool for this purpose. But who decides where the line is? I am sure we will see other creative uses of Rich Snippets.
How Does Google Search, Today’s Google Webmasters video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyCYyoGusqs
Every few days Google posts a new Webmasters video, this one embedded above was a great video which basically answered the question how does google search work. A must watch for anyone who asks you “how do we get to number 1!”
Currys, PC World & Dixons websites down all day… Due to Roadworks!!! Unbelivable. http://bit.ly/JARfEv
A few times a year there is a story of a big name website going down, this time it was the turn of the Curry’s group. I’ve read 3 different stories of this, and each has a different reason as to why they went down. From DDOS attacks, too much traffic, to a digger going through the fibre optic cable which serves their data centre. Whatever the case it is a reminder of the need to have a disaster recovery plan.
24th April
Introducing Google Drive… yes, really http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/introducing-google-drive-yes-really.html
On Tuesday Google Drive was officially released, those of us who already use Google Docs will see it upgraded to a drive next time you sign in and there is downloadable software for for phones, PC’s etc.
Google Drive is basically Dropbox, but with 5 gigs of free data space. This type of service is phenomonally useful, to have a drive / briefcase of files which you can access anywhere. I’m not sure at the moment if I can see myself moving off of dropbox though, I have it set up how I want and am happy with it, though if you are Dropbox, you have to worry when Google copies your service!
Google just pushed an algorithmic ranking change: http://goo.gl/At3SB Coverage at Search Engine Land: http://goo.gl/TISZ1
Also today Google announced on their webmasters blog the official details of Google Penguin. In this post Google stated the benefits of SEO and that it is useful to help search engines identify and read content. It went on to clarify what types of SEO are not acceptable and there are no suprises here. Google wants to see high quality rich content.
25th April RT @Hobo_Web Webmaster Tools spring cleaning http://bit.ly/IdHYUm
Google have been busy, aswell as Google Penguin and Google Drive they announced this week a update to webmaster tools. Google have removed several rarely used or antiquated features.
Yahoo’s genius content strategy – The Oatmeal http://theoatmeal.com/pl/state_web_spring/yahoo via @Oatmeal
And now a little light relief, my cousin shared this on Facebook and I just had to repost. This is EXACTLY how I use facebook. I refuse to share every little thing I read or do, so as soon as a request to sign up to an app appears I just google it!!!
If you’re moving your content from an old website to a new website, this post has lots of good info: http://goo.gl/p8z7z
Another hugely useful post on the Google Webmasters blog. How to move your website to a different domain. Ever considered moving from a .co.uk to a .com or can finally afford the domain name you really wanted? Google tells you how to manage the move process.
Digg loses 35% of their SEO visiblity with latest Google update http://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/2012/04/25/google-bad-seo-update-a-first-earthquake-on-the-short-head/
Searchmetrics post details some early analysis of the winners and losers of the Google Penguin update. I don’t think there are any real suprises but Digg makes a big headline, but at the end of the day they are just a content aggregator, I go to digg to discover content, I don’t expect to google something specific and be sent to digg to send me on somewhere else!
26th April
How to Teach Yourself SEO http://www.peterattia.com/how-to-teach-yourself-seo/ via @PeterAttia
A nice post introduction for Newbie SEO’s and even some more experienced ones may find the resources listed useful.
Link Building Resources – A Curated List http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-resources via @pointblankseo
Another list! A useful go to guide with a list of link building resources.
27th April
Ask the experts: How will rel=author affect SEO? http://econsultancy.com/blog/9704-ask-the-experts-how-will-rel-author-affect-seo
Econsultancy asks the experts how rel=author will affect SEO. There are several different views. In my opinion initially it will increase CTR (Click Thru Rate) as in some sectors few people are using Rel=Author so this makes your content stand out from the rest of the results.
Longer Term I wouldn’t be surprised to see it have some affect on rankings
Type Zerg Rush into Google – My top score 51 #fridayfun.
How many working hours were lost in the world on Friday because Google added an Easter Egg game? Type Zerg Rush into google and you have to prevent the google page being destroyed by the invaders, but be careful, they attack from all direction! What’s your offices top score, mine was a measly 58!
Social Sneakers: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube & More http://www.seroundtable.com/photos/social-shoes-15066.html
Thats all for this week, please leave a comment with your views and opinions on any of the stories above or anything I’ve missed!
Charles Barsley works in eCommerce and in his occasional blog writes about his interests of eCommerce, Search Engine Optimisation, Photography, Cycling and anything which catches his interest!
