Archive - June, 2009

Google UK

June 18, 2009 in SEO with 0 Comments

For quite sometime there’s been a multitude of things client side that have affected search results, such as different computers, different browsers, different times, different data centres, different locations and so on. This has always made it difficult to track all but very strong search results positions.

When you are logged into Google you can get different results, the Google’s ‘AI’ kicks in, well sometimes and sometimes it goes into overdrive, take this for example for the term ‘Google UK’.

Gary Reid 3rd for Google UK

Gary Reid 3rd for Google UK

That’s right, that’s my blog ranking position 3 for the search term ‘Google UK’, hat tip to the algorithm ;)

Just to show I’m not moving the result manually here’s Webmaster Tools and it shows it as the second most popular keyword by impressions

Webmaster Tools Keywords

Webmaster Tools Keywords

I know I don’t really rank for the term, I know Google is trying to out think me and give me what I want, but it’s the funniest example I’ve seen and the irony isn’t lost on me.

Are you Ready for Google Rich Snippets

June 8, 2009 in Semantic Markup, SEO with 1 Comment

Google first announced the incorporation of Rich Snippets over a month ago and they are slowly being rolled out in the USA via Google.com. Probably the best coverage at the time was by Tim O’Reilly who summed up the move as follows.

Rich snippets could be a turning point for the Semantic Web, since, for the first time, they create a powerful economic motivation for semantic markup. Google has told us that rich snippets significantly enhance click-through rates. That means that anyone who has been doing SEO is now going to have to add microformats and RDFa to their toolkit.

Actually I’ve been using them since they were introduced. As of now only certain, trusted, review sites have had them included in results, here are the results for ‘vado reviews’.

Vado Review Google.com

Vado Review Google.com

As you can see CNET has been granted rich snippets, showing 3 out of 5 star rating.

However, adding semantic, structured markup to your site will have a cost, so, while your at it why not get ready for what’s coming. Semantic structure such as star ratings is very simple to understand and the Microformat implementation gives you the following simple ways of structuring your page, as follows.

But, don’t stop there because there are plenty of other formats in draft stage.

For now the roll out is slow, but if you have the opportunity to get ready then make sure you cover all that will suit your site.

Google Kills PageRank Sculpting

June 7, 2009 in SEO with 0 Comments

As reported by  Search Engine Land, Google announced the death of PageRank sculpting, the practice of squeezing PageRank to certain pages by placing nofollow tags on some links. Danny writes:

So today at SMX Advanced, sculpting was being discussed, and then Matt Cutts dropped a bomb shell that it no longer works to help flow more PageRank to the unblocked pages. Again — and being really simplistic here — if you have $10 in authority to spend on those ten links, and you block 5 of them, the other 5 aren’t going to get $2 each. They’re still getting $1. It’s just that the other $5 you thought you were saving is now going to waste.

For me, this is good news, I once had witnessed an SEO consultant spend 3 days sculpting PageRank on one page with little or no effect, unbelievable.

This will mean the ‘nofollow’ tag will be used more for its intended purpose, on links such a ‘privacy’ or ‘sign-in’ and of course ‘paid links’.