This is one of the reasons why I don’t use GMAIL – Google Accidentally Bans Hundreds of Users from Gmail. Barry Schwartz reports on a Google Groups thread where many users have complained that their Gmail accounts were all of a sudden disabled. The problem began late on December 5th. The following day, Gmail Guide replied saying that this was an error on Google’s side and they are fixing it.
I had the chance to sit down with Li Evans of Key Relevance and founder of Search Marketing Gurus after my session on Thursday entitled “So Your Want to be a Search Marketer.” She did a quick video interview with me asking me to summarize what I talked about on the panel and also asked me what I would consider my top three tips for new marketers who are just entering the filed of search marketing. Finally she asked me what one of the biggest lessons I learned when starting out myself.
I just finished speaking on the “So You Want To Be a Search Marketer” panel at Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2007 and wanted to provide a brief overview of what I spoke on as well as highlight some of the great questions we received.
We are taking Uncover the Net off of our list of directories that we will recommend for clients and anyone else to submit their sites to. Why? They are now adding the nofollow attribute to listings. That means no link love, no help getting a new site indexed, bottom line – no trust. I have not seen this practice in place with them in recent history. They most likely have fallen under the spell of Google’s FUD campaign against those selling paid links.
While I did not expect much in the way of news here in the U.S. due to the Thanksgiving holiday, it appears that Google took the opportunity to update their web master guidelines regarding paid links. The changes essentially reveal that buying or selling links that pass PageRank can penalize a site not only in its Google Toolbar PageRank status, but also in Google search results. What does this mean for those that consider themselves “white hat SEOs?” Better go shopping for a new hat – a nice black one.
I can’t believe it has been almost a year since I wrote my first “The Thanksgivings of a Search Marketer” post but no doubt – here we are. Therefore in traditional fashion, seeing that those of us in the United States will celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday this coming Thursday, I thought I’d once again reflect on what I am thankful for as a search marketer.
Aaron Wall has launched a new tool called, “The Website Health Check Tool.” The tool is designed to discover any major SEO related issues that your site may have including things like indexing, duplicate content, canonical URL issues and so on.
I have written before that we use CopySentry to find and monitor occurrences of copy theft and infringement regarding content on our site. Today, I discovered a story on TechCrunch about a company called Attributor which offers a service very similar to CopySentry but with many added features.
It is all over the blogosphere – sites known for selling text link ads or Google PageRank have been slapped with a PageRank reduction for their own sites by the almighty Google itself. Is this a worldwide PR update with a possible algorithm change or is it more along the line of a hand job?
In today’s socially connected online world, reputation management is becoming more and more a concern for any business. Sure, most companies are able to secure the number one spot in the organic search results for their brand via their company web site. However, what about the remaining first page real estate and even that of the second and third pages?
