SEO, Social Media News & Domains
Archive for October, 2010
Google Maps Change for Organic Listings
Oct 28th
Google has made some interesting changes to their maps listings, this will see the map listing moved to the right and organic listings moved to the center. This removes the old 10 pack listings which were used previously. This change is an interesting one and I am sure it will have an impact for websites traffic, especially paid search listings on the left of the page they will see a large drop in traffic also with only 2 organic listings now on location pages these will also suffer traffic drops, this just emphasizes the fact for a strong Google local strategy.
Google map changes
Google Test – Organic Listing Preview
Oct 28th
Here is something Google has been testing for the last few weeks, a preview for all Google organic listings.
If this change takes place it will have a huge effect on CTR levels for websites with a poor design, so now more then ever design is a important SEO aspect, it will lift the quality of the internet that is for sure and websites which are high on advertising above the fold will see a drop in traffic or sites with a poor design will drop in traffic. This is pretty much a direct rip off Bing who is taking up some decent market share.
Refer to image below from Blogstorm –
Google organic preview
New Myspace Layout rolls out today!
Oct 27th
Myspace has released a new layout today which will see the website fight back against strong competition from market leaders such as Facebook and Twitter, which have been dominating the market for the last 2 years. Myspace once has dominance and pretty much owned the social media space before the new players came into the market.
Check out the video below of the new changes to Myspace -
Do you think the new strategy will work?
The power of Exact Match domains for SEO!
Oct 23rd
Ok so alot of talk over the last few weeks in the SEO world has been around the power of exact match domain names and how Google favours them in serp’s results. It is very common knowledge that if you have a exact match .com such as CarLoans.com.au and you want to rank on page 1 for Google it can be done quite quickly using an exact match domain, some decent unique content, a few pages design and also some local links, this is the key reason many people pay such large amtounf of money for exact match .com.au domains becuase they 1. know the domain will acquire around 5% direct type in traffic and 2. have the exact match SEO benefit. Yet alot of SEO’s are buzzing aroudn the traps saying that it is unfair that these domian are so powerful in the engines and their power should be dropped. I have seen this trend already taking place int he US serps results for exact match properties I own personally. I think over time the Australian Google will take a similar approach to exact match domains the only question is how long will it take?
For more reading on this subject check out the following post from SEO MOZ –
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited
SAW 3D FAKE PHOTO BOOTH Viral Video
Oct 21st
Google Images + Instant = Not so family Friendly
Oct 19th
Google instant has taken search engines by storm, yet Google has forgotten to update its “Family” friendly attitude to its image search algo, with several less then family friendly search terms showing within Google image suggestion boxes –
Typing A-Z in Google Image search we see the following problems –
Keyword G –
girls with out dress
girls breast feeding each other
girls in bathrooms
Keyword K –
Kim Kardashian no clothes
Katrina kaif in no bra
katrina kaif in no dress
Keyword H –
Hot girls wallpapers without bra
hot girls wallpaper
Keyword M -
Miley cyrus no clothes
Miley cyrus naughty
Megan fox no clothes
Keyword V -
Vanessa hudgens no clothes
Keyword Z -
Zac efron nasty pictures
Bing introducing Facebook Like data in Search
Oct 18th
A very interesting movement last week with Bing introducing Facebook Like data in Search algorithm, what this means now is that if you like a piece of content or a page on Facebook, now when your friends or inner community on Facebook use Bing they will see a section for this “liked” content, this just shows the move towards the “social search” or “semantic search” web.
I can see search engines using more of this type of data in the future, I think it only emphasizes the fact that clients use social graph API sharing more.
This is also a strong area of growth for companies who have spent the last few years building up their Facebook presence with a strong emphasis on building quality likes to pages.
Top Buzz websites for brands in Australia
Oct 18th
Ever wondered what was the most buzziest channel for people mentioning your brand name online, well a recent study by the Digital Brand Index in australia has shown that Twitter is the number one most buzziest channel followed by whirlpool forums and then Over Clockers forums. these channels provide a huge number of brand mentions, it is highly important to be on top of what people are saying about your brands on these forums as they are a key element to social media.
Facebook Places is the TOP dog in Location apps
Oct 8th
Well it has only taken around 1 month and now Facebook Places is officially the largest location based application on the market,
It has taken the top spot from other location based services such as Gowola and Foursquare in little to no time.
It was obvious Facebook as going to be able to achieve such results with the huge user base they have on hand.
Also on the subject of Facebook, Facebook has made Chat upgrades and Upgrades to Facebook Groups
In a bid to give users more tools and control over the sharing of information (and perhaps preempt Google) Facebook introduced a new
way to create and communicate with small private groups of people. Through an API this same functionality will be extended to publishers and third
party developers like Facebook Connect is today.
Bing now confirms CTR is a organic ranking Factor.
Oct 7th
google vs bing
Bing has confirmed that CTR is now a factor in its Ranking algorithm, Bing has confirmed this at the SMX east. This has been confirmed by Steve Tullis a senior manager at Bing. Google has stated that CTR is not a important factor in their ranking algorithm.
Another interesting development is that Firefox is now set its standard search provider to be Bing, this is a great move for Bing as many hundred million people use Fire Fox on a daily basis. This is why Google has moved its emphasis towards chrome.
These new changes to the primary search provider for Mozilla 4 will be on both the Mac and PC versions of the software so it is a huge win for Bing.
