Gravity Search Marketing » how-to seo

New Developments This Week in Google and Bing

Jennifer Grappone — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 01:20:55 +0000

There’s been a lot of discussion this week about two recent announcements concerning Google’s and Bing’s ranking algorithms. We’ll boil them down for you here.

1. Twitter authority is factoring into web rankings
Google and Bing have disclosed that they assign authority to Twitter accounts, and that a person of high authority may give a rankings boost to a page by tweeting a link to that page. This is a similar concept to Google’s PageRank, in which Google assesses the strength of a web page. At this time there is no official name for Twitter authority, and no specific value that is available for the public to see.

While we’ve always known that links from within tweets are beneficial because they can drive traffic to a site, it was previously believed that tweets did not pass any ranking power. We now believe that, at least in some cases, tweets that link to a page can help improve that page’s organic ranks.

What this means to you
This revelation underscores the importance of getting your website talked about on Twitter. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, advises that website owners should think about Twitter as a form of link building.

Although this was not explicitly stated, we believe that being linked to on public Facebook venues also carries some ranking benefits in Google and Bing.

Read Danny Sullivan’s excellent article on Social signals and search rankings.

2. Merchant reviews appear to influence rankings
We are keeping an eye on a new algorithm change announced by Google this week. The official wording is ambiguous, but the catalyst for this algorithm change was a recent New York Times article about a high-ranking, highly unscrupulous online merchant. Top SEO analysts believe that merchant reviews (the reviews that users post about online stores in venues such as Google Checkout, Shopzilla, and Pricegrabber) are now factoring into Google’s determination of ranks. Merchant reviews, which reside on review aggregator sites, are different from individual product reviews, which typically reside on the merchant’s own site.

Positive merchant reviews are expected to have a positive effect on ranks, so it goes without saying that the more highly regarded a business is (as evidenced by merchant reviews) the better the potential rankings benefit.

What this means to you
We believe that any online store should have a merchant account set up in at least one venue to begin accruing and encouraging positive merchant reviews. This is something we always recommend, but it’s something that now deserves a higher priority on your list of SEO endeavors.

This is a very recent announcement, and the interpretations are still highly speculative, however we believe that this is most likely to strongly affect merchants with very poor reviews at this time. We expect this algorithmic factor to evolve in the near future.

Read Google’s announcement on their recent changes.

How to Use the Robots Meta Tag

Gravity — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:21:46 +0000

The Robots meta tag has been around for ages, but some new features introduced in 2006 and 2007 have made it a lot more useful than it used to be. Here’s the 4-1-1.

Robots meta tag basics

The robots meta tag is a part of a web page that communicates information to search engine robots. The robots meta tag is written within the of an HTML file and looks something like this:

Here is what you can put inside the “content” area:

“noindex”– this will prevent search engines from indexing the page
“nofollow” — this will prevent search engines from following any link on the page
“noarchive” — this will prevent search engines from keeping a cached version of the page in search results
“nosnippet” — this will prevent a description from appearing on your site’s listing on search engine results pages
“noodp” — this will prevent search engines from displaying the Open Directory title or description on your site’s listing
“noydir” — this will prevent Yahoo! from displaying the Yahoo! Directory title or description on your sites listing
“none” – this is the equivalent of “noindex, nofollow”
“noimageindex” – this will prevent search engines from indexing images on the page

Excluding a page from indexing with NOINDEX

To exclude a page from indexing, use the following format: .

This type of exclusion is an alternative to excluding with the robots.txt file. Differences between the two methods of exclusion can be seen in the following table: (note, this table applies to Google only).

Table: Google Robots Exclusion with the Robots Meta Tag

Feature	Robots.txt exclusion	Robots meta tag exclusion
Page accumulates PageRank?	yes	yes
Page listed in Google?	the URL may be displayed in listings	no
Page passes PageRank through outbound links?	no	yes!

Improving Search Engine Listings with NOODP and NOYDIR

Some websites are saddled with outdated titles and descriptions from the Yahoo! Directory or the Open Directory. This is a very simple problem to solve, using the “noodp” and “noydir” meta tags. These tags will prevent the directory titles and descriptions from displaying for your site. Instead, your own HTML titles will display, along with snippets that are generated from your page content (or, sometimes, your Meta Descripton tag).

Ask the Experts: What Content Is Linkbait?

Gravity — Sat, 26 May 2007 03:22:29 +0000

Q: In your book, you mention the benefit for “non-commercial” content as a way to gain visibility in the search engines. Could you provide me some examples of commercial websites with non-commercial content? I’ve really never seen any at all.

I’m afraid of looking “weird” by putting philosophical beliefs, etc. on the site.

A: What we really mean by “non-commercial” is this: informative and helpful, with little or no sales-speak. Of course this content should be related to your product and we don’t recommend going off on a philosophical (or, heaven forbid, political) tangent. Here are a few ideas and examples:

Resume tips on an executive recruiter’s website
Wine reviews on a site that sells wine cellar management software
Case studies, white papers, how to, or troubleshooting tips related to your product
Q & A, “ask the experts” or answers to common questions in your industry
Free tools or downloads
“Area Sights” on a hotel website (but only if this is really unique – not like the generic ones we usually see!)

Some “real world” examples are:

Author Rhonda Abrams provides expert advice, a newsletter, and several other pathways into her realm of authority.
Stevens Creek Software, which sells athletic software among other things, has a target heart rate calculator.
Search engine expert Aaron Wall offers free online SEO tools

Inlinks are great, not only because they bring traffic directly to your site, but also because search engines notice them and use them to measure the authority of your pages. Notice how, in the three examples above, we used keywords to link to the content. These links will give Ms. Abrams a little boost for ranking well when people search for “Rhonda Abrams,” the software site a boost for “target heart rate calculator,” and Mr. Wall a boost for “free online SEO tools.”

Of course you could delve even further into the realm by building content primarily designed to gain links, and that would be what we call “linkbait.” This is one of the most talked-about subjects in SEO today – for more on Linkbait you may wish to read:

Matt Cutts’ SEO Advice: Linkbait and Linkbaiting
Search Engine Journal with an article on linkbait
Problogger on “What is Linkbait?“

The important question is not “is this material non-commercial” but rather: “is this material linkable?” Information that is not readily available elsewhere on the web, or which provides a new and different perspective, can serve to be quite linkable. It will also help you build your credibility and relationship with your potential customers. And that’s your real bottom line, isn’t it?