Will the Rise of Mobile Apps Kill SEO and SEM?

At Yahoo's first mobile developer conference in New York City, the company's senior vice president of publishing products Simon Khalaf said that SEO, SEM, and blue links "are gone" on mobile because people are not using browsers. As apps dominate mobile activity, is traditional search marketing via SEO and SEM going to disappear?

Not necessarily, industry experts say. Although mobile apps offer a convenient way for users to access a large variety of services, there's a tremendous amount of information they need to navigate through browsers, according to Sastry Rachakonda, chief executive officer (CEO) of iQuanti, a digital marketing company that specializes in search.

"Will people stop searching because of mobile apps? I don't think so because they need information," Rachakonda says. "SEO and SEM will still be there, but what will change is how SEO and SEM are done. Mobile data gives you the opportunity to largely improve the quality of search. The more data, the better search outcome you can deliver."

Vikas Gupta, director of marketing at data company Factual, agrees that search behaviors will remain. He believes that SEO has become an abstract concept for the manner in which marketers optimize themselves to be found digitally.

"I think the way people traditionally look at SEO, which is effectively optimizing for blue links, will continue to change dramatically," Gupta says. "It will become less important for a specific set of search behaviors, such as local search, that is very fragmented across different mobile apps including Apple Maps, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Foursquare and so forth. But SEO will remain important for some search behaviors, like business-to-business sales type of search."

While Rachakonda and Gupta don't think SEO and SEM will disappear soon, they both point out that mobile apps have become a real threat to Google, the number one player in search. As more people buy things on Amazon, select restaurants on Yelp and book cabs on Uber, they won't need Google to be an intermediate. Even Facebook's virtual assistant can handle some search tasks, Factual's Gupta adds.

The search giant is aware of mobile app's threat and has taken action. Google has been working hard to optimize search results or mobile display, in addition to integrating search with other mobile app experiences on Android through "Now on Tap" and aggressively indexing mobile app content. But while its search app can reach 50 percent of the U.S. mobile market, according to comScore, Rachakonda thinks Google has to do more.

"Google built a search engine primarily for desktop, but now search behaviors have changed. They are not the same as someone going to a search bar on desktop," he says. "I think Google is aware of this change, as it has been making lots of mobile efforts like encouraging HTML5 and indexing apps. Google may have forward-thinking business plans, but it's difficult for the company to completely transform its business model."

As the conventional search model is transforming, what could be an ideal search format for a mobile world? Nobody has a good answer at the moment. But Gupta believes that the best format should be highly intelligent.

"If you look at what Google Now or Microsoft's Cortana is trying to do, the idea is that a user does not actually need to tell a device anything, while the device can predict what the user would be interested in and send them information accordingly," Gupta says. "What is the easiest way to get the most accurate answer? If you can develop search products that solve users' pain points and offer more convenience than the existing solutions, you will win in the long run."

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2424750/will-the-rise-of-mobile-apps-kill-seo-and-sem

Link Building: Why Should You Build Links Today?

Webster's Dictionary defines link building as... it doesn't actually.

Why is there no standard definition? It isn't like link building is a secret. According to a recent survey, 80 percent of companies engaged in SEO are spending more than $1,000 a month on link building.

The lack of a standard definition leads to a large amount of confusion within the industry itself. I've met other SEOs and marketers who had a tenuous grasp on link building at best. It's not like there's an SEO college. Forget that: SEO is barely taught in universities at all.

So what is link building exactly? If you're asking me for a bare bones definition, I would say it's the process of going out of your way to find great links.

But I don't think that definition truly does link building justice: it ignores the importance of link building. It ignores the crucial role it can and should play in any online marketing campaign. In my opinion, the true definition of link building doesn't come from just asking what, it also comes from asking why.

Link building isn't just the aforementioned process of acquiring backlinks that point to your site: it's also a proven marketing tactic that increases brand awareness and conversions.
The Why

So why should you build links today? You should do it for the same reason you should have built links last year. And the year before. And every year since Google dominated the search market.

You should build links because links are still one of the most important ranking signals in Google's algorithm, and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

You don't have to take just my word for it. Listen to Matt Cutts, who emphasized the importance of links at the recent SMX Advanced conference.

Danny Sullivan: Is link building just dead? You keep saying a new tactic is dead, or must be nofollowed, is it really you just don't want people to try to build links at all?

Cutts: No, link building is not dead. And a very small percentage of links on the web are nofollowed. There's a lot of mileage left in links.

Even though it seemed Sullivan, the founder of Search Engine Land, was trying to bait him into saying link building possessed little value, Cutts rebuffed that idea.

It's not just about increasing search visibility and brand exposure, however. Link building can help drive other marketing strategies. There's a lot of talk about content marketing being "the new link building." I believe this to be a falsehood.

The two are completely different. Content marketing has ambitions beyond building links; it's primarily focused on disseminating a brand message.

If you launch a content marketing initiative solely for links, your content will likely suffer. Content marketing and link building may not be synonymous, but they complement each other nicely. Link building can help you to build relationships that can serve to benefit you in other endeavors as well.

Link building is a crucial component to a comprehensive online marketing campaign.
The Ghost of Link Building Past

I can't accurately provide you with the year when link building started, but I can tell you that link building has existed for a long time. Eric Ward, who is known as the godfather of link building, helped Amazon.com create a link building strategy all the way back in 1994. That's four years before Google even existed.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2356174/What-is-Link-Building

Future-proof Link Building Techniques for 2014

Since Google’s recent updates, link building by spamming does not work anymore and that’s a good thing. To succeed with your website in 2014, you have to do the right things.

1. In 2014, link building is more alive than ever

You’ve probably seen some “link building is dead” theories on the Internet. People who say this usually engaged heavily in link spam activities.

Automatically creating backlinks in bulk does not work anymore. Faking social network profiles to get backlinks does not work anymore. Spamming forums and article websites with fake or low quality content to get backlinks does not work anymore. Automated link networks do not work anymore.
In short: spamming does not work anymore.

Link building, however, is still the most important thing that you have to do if you want to get high rankings on Google. Google’s Matt Cutts made that clear in an interview:

“Links are still the best way that we’ve found to discover [how relevant or important somebody is], and maybe over time social or authorship or other types of markup will give us a lot more information about that.”

2. Relevance has become even more important

“Things, not strings” is one of the most important concepts that Google introduced last year. The context of a link has become even more important.

The links that point to your website should come from pages that are related to the topic of your own website. Google has been saying this for years but now they are serious about it.

If all of the links that point to your website contain exactly the same keyword, you can be sure that this will trigger an ‘unnatural links’ filter. If the links to your website contain keywords that are related to the topic of your website, Google will find your website relevant for that topic.

3. Once again: spamming is risky

Some people still think that they can trick Google’s algorithm with the ‘brand new secret method that will get your site on Google’s first result page with just a few mouse clicks.’ These spam tools do not work anymore.

Google does not like link schemes and you should avoid these link types:

• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank.
• Excessive link exchanges.
• Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links.
• Using automated programs or services to create links to your site.
• Text advertisements that pass PageRank.
• Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass PageRank.
• Links with optimized anchor text in articles or press releases distributed on other sites.
• Low-quality directory or bookmark site links.
• Links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites.
• Widely distributed links in the footers of various sites.
• Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature

If you use these methods to build backlinks, it’s likely that your website will be penalized.


Read More: http://blog.seoprofiler.com/2014/01/future-proof-link-building-techniques-2014/

SEO Updates: Know All Google Algorithm Changes 2013

Unnamed Update — November 14, 2013

Multiple Google trackers picked up unusual activity, which co-occurred with a report of widespread DNS errors in Google Webmaster Tools. Google did not confirm an update, and the cause and nature of this flux was unclear.

Penguin 2.1 (#5) — October 4, 2013

After a 4-1/2 month gap, Google launched another Penguin update. Given the 2.1 designation, this was probably a data update (primarily) and not a major change to the Penguin algorithm. The overall impact seemed to be moderate, although some webmasters reported being hit hard.

Hummingbird — August 20, 2013

Announced on September 26th, Google suggested that the "Hummingbird" update rolled out about a month earlier. Our best guess ties it to a MozCast spike on August 20th and many reports of flux from August 20-22. Hummingbird has been compared to Caffeine, and seems to be a core algorithm update that may power changes to semantic search and the Knowledge Graph for months to come.

In-depth Articles — August 6, 2013

Google added a new type of news result called "in-depth articles", dedicated to more evergreen, long-form content. At launch, it included links to three articles, and appeared across about 3% of the searches that MozCast tracks.

Unnamed Update — July 26, 2013

MozCast tracked a large Friday spike (105° F), with other sources showing significant activity over the weekend. Google has not confirmed this update.

Knowledge Graph Expansion — July 19, 2013

Seemingly overnight, queries with Knowledge Graph (KG) entries expanded by more than half (+50.4%) across the MozCast data set, with more than a quarter of all searches showing some kind of KG entry.

Panda Recovery — July 18, 2013

Google confirmed a Panda update, but it was unclear whether this was one of the 10-day rolling updates or something new. The implication was that this was algorithmic and may have "softened" some previous Panda penalties.

Multi-Week Update — June 27, 2013

Google's Matt Cutts tweeted a reply suggesting a "multi-week" algorithm update between roughly June 12th and "the week after July 4th". The nature of the update was unclear, but there was massive rankings volatility during that time period, peaking on June 27th (according to MozCast data). It appears that Google may have been testing some changes that were later rolled back.

Panda Dance — June 11, 2013

While not an actual Panda update, Matt Cutts made an important clarification at SMX Advanced, suggesting that Panda was still updating monthly, but each update rolled out over about 10 days. This was not the "everflux" many people had expected after Panda #25.

"Payday Loan" Update — June 11, 2013

Google announced a targeted algorithm update to take on niches with notoriously spammy results, specifically mentioning payday loans and porn. The update was announced on June 11th, but Matt Cutts suggested it would roll out over a 1-2 month period.

Penguin 2.0 (#4) — May 22, 2013

After months of speculation bordering on hype, the 4th Penguin update (dubbed "2.0" by Google) arrived with only moderate impact. The exact nature of the changes were unclear, but some evidence suggested that Penguin 2.0 was more finely targeted to the page level.

Domain Crowding — May 21, 2013

Google released an update to control domain crowding/diversity deep in the SERPs (pages 2+). The timing was unclear, but it seemed to roll out just prior to Penguin 2.0 in the US and possibly the same day internationally.

"Phantom" — May 9, 2013

In the period around May 9th, there were many reports of an algorithm update (also verified by high MozCast activity). The exact nature of this update was unknown, but many sites reported significant traffic loss.

Panda #25 — March 14, 2013

Matt Cutts pre-announced a Panda update at SMX West, and suggested it would be the last update before Panda was integrated into the core algorithm. The exact date was unconfirmed, but MozCast data suggests 3/13-3/14.

Panda #24 — January 22, 2013

Google announced its first official update of 2013, claiming 1.2% of queries affected. This did not seem related to talk of an update around 1/17-18 (which Google did not confirm).

Read More at http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

SEO News: Matt Cutts Say "A Little Duplicate Content Won't Hurt Your Rankings"

Duplicate content is always a concern for webmasters. Whether it's a website stealing content from another site, or perhaps a website that hasn't taken an active role in ensuring they get great unique quality content on their site, being duplicated out of the Google index is a problem.

In the latest webmaster help video from Google's Matt Cutts, he addresses how Google handles duplicate content, and when it can negatively impact your search rankings.

Matt Cutts started by explaining what duplicate content is and why duplicate content isn't always a problem, especially when it comes to quoting parts of other web pages.

It's important to realize that if you look at content on the web, something like 25 or 30 percent of all of the web's content is duplicate content. … People will quote a paragraph of a blog and then link to the blog, that sort of thing. So it's not the case that every single time there's duplicate content it's spam, and if we made that assumption the changes that happened as a result would end up probably hurting our search quality rather than helping our search quality.

For several years, Google's stance has been that they try to find the originating source and give that result the top billing, so to speak. After all, Google doesn't want to serve up masses of identical pages to a searcher because it doesn't provide a very good user experience if they click on one page, didn't find what they're looking for, and then go back and click the next result only to discover the identical page, just merely on a different site.

Google looks for duplicate content and where we can find it, we often try to group it all together and treat it as of it's just one piece of content. So most of the time, suppose we're starting to return a set of search results and we've got two pages that are actually kind of identical. Typically we would say, "OK, rather than show both of those pages since they're duplicates, let's just show one of those pages and we'll crowd the other result out," and then if you get to the bottom of the search results and you really want to do an exhaustive search, you can change the filtering so that you can say, "OK, I want to see every single page" and then you'd see that other page. But for the most part, duplicate content isn't really treated as spam. It's just treated as something we need to cluster appropriately and we need to make sure that it ranks correctly, but duplicate content does happen.

Next, Cutts tackles the issue of where duplicate content is spam, such as websites that have scraped content off the original websites or website owner suggests republish a lot of “free articles” that are republished on masses of other websites. These types of sites have the biggest problem with duplicate content because they merely copy content created on other websites.

It's certainly the case that if you do nothing but duplicate content, and you are doing in an abusive, deceptive, malicious, or a manipulative way, we do reserve the right to take action on spam. So someone on Twitter was asking a question about "how can I do an RSS auto blog to a blog site and not have that be viewed as spam," and the problem is that if you are automatically generating stuff that is coming from nothing but an RSS feed, you're not adding a lot of value, so that duplicate content might be a little bit more likely to be viewed as spam.
There are also cases where businesses might legitimately end up with duplicate content that won't necessarily viewed as spam. In some cases, websites end up with duplicate content for usability reasons, rather than SEO. For the most part those websites shouldn't worry either

But if you're just making a regular website and you're worried about whether you'd have something on the .com and the .co.uk, or you might have two versions of your terms and conditions, an older version and a newer version, that sort of duplicate content happens all the time on the web and I really wouldn't get stressed out about the notion that you might have a little bit of duplicate content.

Cutts does caution against local directory types of websites that list masses of cities but serve up empty listings with no true content about what the user might be looking for, as well as sites that create individual pages for every neighborhood they service, even though the content is the same as what's on main city web page.

As long as you're not trying to massively copy for every city in every state in the entire United States, show the same boilerplate text which is, "no dentists found in this city either," for the most part you should be in very good shape not have anything to worry about.

Bottom line: as long as your duplicate content is there for legitimate reasons (e.g., you're quoting another website or you have things like two versions of terms and conditions), you really shouldn't be concerned about duplicate content. However, Google certainly can and will take action against sites utilizing duplicate content in a spammy fashion, because they aren't adding value to the search results.

Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2319706/Googles-Matt-Cutts-A-Little-Duplicate-Content-Wont-Hurt-Your-Rankings