Today would be the official 9th birthday of the Search Engine Roundtable. That means I've been writing about search, SEO, the industry and related topics for 9 years - which is about 28% of my life writing about search. It shocks me how I am able to find new nuggets of information, several of them, each day to share here. Truth is, without the community, it would not be possible.
As you know, the original niche for this site was to report what was going in within the community through the discussion forums. That mission is what has made this site so successful over the years and we have not budged from it at all.
Thank you all for reading, commenting, and helping me create this content on a daily basis - thank you!
Stats:
This year we had well over 610,000 pageviews on average every month - that is over 100,000 more pageviews per month than last year. Of that, 400,000 plus were unique visitors per month, that is also up from last year by 100,000 unique visitors. We posted over 1,600 stories, with 50 video posts, with about 15,000 real comments from the community. Our pageviews is up over 20% from last year, unique visits are up over 60%, with mobile traffic up by over 60% from the year before. Our most popular browsers are Internet Explorer with 40%, Chrome with 25%, Firefox with 20% and Safari with 6%. On the mobile front iOS is 66% and is only Android is 29% of the mobile browser traffic on this site. Our YouTube channel is just shy of 5 million video views to date, with a half a million views this year - but 70% of those who watch my videos are male. On the traffic to this site, over 45% of the traffic comes direct, less than 35% comes from Google, Twitter sends about 2.5% and the rest are all under 2% - so the diversity of the traffic to this site is nice.
Yearly Recap:
The key themes this year included Google's Panda and Penguin updates but also mentioned the exact-match-domain update, the page layout update and the DMCA updates amongst others. Google and Bing introduced link disavow tools, whereas Google target more and more link schemes this year. SSL and [not provided] was at the top of the charts, but to compensate, Google kept improving webmaster tools. Social was huge this year, with Google on the Google+ side and Bing interfacing with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. Knowledge with the knowledge graph was a major push this year on Google's front as well. Mobile best practices became clear on Google's end but also more clarified on Bing's front. Google Shopping is not a paid Google product, whereas Google Places is now Google+ Local For Business. Yahoo's founder Jerry Yang left and one of Google's first employees, Marissa Mayer became the CEO of Yahoo. In the industry, Jim Boykin started buying up a lot of the search communities and I just feel the industry is more divided than ever before. That is how I would sum up the year in a paragraph or so.
Google Penguin:
- It's Live: Google Over Optimization Algorithm (3% Of Searches Affected)
- Google's Over Optimization Update Named Penguin
- Official: Google Penguin 1.1 Now Live
- Google's Cutts: The Next Penguin Update Will Be Big
- Google Released 3rd Penguin Update: Not Jarring Or Jolting
Google Panda:
- Official Google Panda #22 Update: November 21
- Official: Google Panda Refresh On November 5th (Version 21)
- 20th Google Panda Algorithm Update: Fairly Major
- Cutts: Google Launched Another Update During The EMD Update (i.e. Panda 20)
- Google Rolls Out Panda 3.9.2 Refresh
- Confirmed: Google Panda 3.9.1 Update
- Official: Google Panda 3.9 Refresh
- Google Panda 3.8 Live: June 25th & Refresh Only
- Confirmed: Google Panda 3.7 Update
- You Missed The Google Panda 3.6 Update
- Google Mocks Me For Missing Panda 3.5
- Google Panda 3.4 Rollout
- New Panda Refresh? Google Update Happening...
- Confirmed: Google Panda 3.3
- Confirmed: Google Panda 3.2 Update
- Google Panda Update During Holidays? Panda 3.2
Google EMD, Page Layout & DMCA Update:
- Google EMD Update: Exact Match Domains No Longer Rank As Well
- Google Page Layout Algorithm & Penalty
- Google Page Layout Algorithm Officially Updated
- DMCA Takedowns The Latest Google Search Quality Penalty
Google Misc Updates:
- Google Panda 4.0 Update? A Diversification Update.
- Google Diversity Update Actually Work?
- Google Won't Confirm Weekend Update But Says Panda Coming Soon
- Google Update Brewing? What Is Going On?
- That Google Update Was Just A Bug Says Google
- A Google Search Results Shuffle Happening
- December Google Search Results Update?
- Google Easter April 2012 Search Update?
- Google's 65 Search Updates For Aug & Sep Is Missing Updates
- Google Search Quality Updates Returns
- Google: Fresher Images & Blog Results, Better Long Tail & Original Content Indexing
- Google Announced 50+ Search Updates, Which Are Penguin Related?
- 50 Google Search Quality Updates
- 40 More Google Search Quality Updates From Google
- February 17: Latest Google Search Quality Updates
- Google's 30 Most Recent Search Quality Changes
Google Monthly Webmaster Reports:
- November 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- October 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- September 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- August 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- July 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- June 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- May 2012 Google Webmaster Report: More Flux
- April 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- March 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- February 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- January 2012 Google Webmaster Report
- December 2011 Google Webmaster Report
Google SEO/Webmaster:
- Google's Disavow Link Tool: Their Best Spam Reporting Tool Yet
- Google Rolling Out SSL Default Worldwide
- Google Goes After Links In WordPress Themes
- Google Penalizes Blog Networks, Did SEOs Use It To Hurt Competitors?
- Google Bans The Agency Who Buys The Link
- Google: Infographic Links To Be Discounted
- Google On Pace To Hit Over 4 Million Messages To Webmasters This Year
- Google Sends Out 20,000 Weird Redirect Hacked Notifications
- Cutts: Google To Target Overly SEO'ed Sites Within Weeks
- Free Directory Sites Dropping Out Of Google?
- Google: Here Are Some Inorganic Links Pointing To You
- Link Incentives Are Against Google's Webmaster Guidelines
- Official: Google Ignores Links From Updowner.com
- Google Sends Out New Batch Of Unnatural Link Notifications
- Google Sends Out Notifications For Links They Ignore
- See Your Newest Links In Google Webmaster Tools
- Google: A Webmaster Tools Notification = Manual Action
- Google Partially Removes Penalties
- Spam Reporting For Google Rich Snippets
- Fake Google Rich Snippets: Next Spam Target
- Google Caught Buying Paid Links Again
- New Google Webmaster Tools Crawl Errors Confuses
- Google: Phone Number Spam Is Keyword Stuffing & Against Guidelines
- Now Really Test Your Google Rich Snippets
- Google Webmaster Tools Now Adds Crawl Error Alerts
- "Detected New Page" Message In Google Webmaster Tools
- User Access Added To Google Webmaster Tools
- Google Panda Now A Year Old But Only 13% Fully Recovered
- Google Webmaster Tools Query Reports Now Up To 90 Days
- Google's New Advanced Index Status Report
- Structured Data Dashboard On Google Webmaster Tools
- Google Shuns Prayer Times Rich Snippet
- Types Of Google Reconsideration Requests Responses
- Google Webmaster Tools Adds Search Query Notifications
- Google Updates Structured Data Testing Tool (Formerly Rich Snippets)
- Google's New Search Snippets Blocked By Robots.txt Warning
- Google Webmaster Tools Gets New Dashboards & Navigation
- Google's Cutts: Links Still More Powerful Thank Social Signals
- Confirmed: Concert Rich Snippets Showing In Search Results
- Video Rich Snippet Markup With Schema.org Now Preferred By Google
- New Improved Download Options For Google Webmaster Tools
- Google Improves Multilingual Support With Markup
- Google Re-Lists CO.CC Domains After 6 Month Ban
- New: Test Sitemaps & Googlebot Mobile In Google Webmaster Tools
- Google Author Stats in Webmaster Tools
- Google Expands Hacked Sites Label In Search Results
- Google Acts For SOPA But Bing & Yahoo Don't
Google PageRank:
- Google PageRank Update: November 2012
- Google PageRank Update: August 2012
- Google PageRank Update: May 2012
- Google PageRank Update: February 2012
Bing (&Yahoo) SEO/Webmaster:
- Bing Ties Facebook Into Search, Is It Too Much?
- Yahoo Site Explorer Returns As Bing Link Explorer
- Bing Launches Disavow Links Tool Before Google
- Bing's New Design For Search Results
- Bing Has Over Ten Results When Google Does Seven
- Bing Goes With Clean & White Design
- Bing Search Update - August 2012?
- Bing Search Update? Crawl Changes?
- Bing Webmaster Tools Now Shows Percentage Changes
- Bing Adds Foursquare Reviews To Social Bar
- New: Bing Webmaster Tools API
- Bing May Discount Clicks On Popular Domain Names
- Bing Adds Up To 8 Sitelinks
- Bing Favoring Regional Sites In Country Specific Versions
- Bing Officially Kills Link Command Support
- Bing (Yahoo) Search Update - March 2012?
Google Search:
- Google Rolling Out SSL Default Worldwide
- Google Knowledge Graph: Google Labels Me An SEO Expert
- Google Knowledge Graph: Worldwide, Carousel & Instant
- Webmaster Reaction Towards Google Search, Plus Your World
- Google May Only Showing Seven Search Results
- It's Official: Google's New Top Navigation Goes Live But Will It Remain "Clean"?
- Google Changes Navigation Bar Again
- Goodbye Black Google Bar, Welcome Google Drop Down Menu
- Google's Amit Singhal: Freebase Entities Grows From 12M To 200M
- Google Images Adds Related Image Previews
- Google: We Know It Won't Be Easy Without iGoogle But Too Bad
- Google Adds Graphing Calculator To Search Results
- Google Shares The Evolution Of Their Search Engine
Mobile:
- Official: Google Recommends Responsive Design For Mobile SEO
- Google: One URL With Special Stylesheet Is Easy Mobile SEO
- Bing Takes Clear Stance On Mobile SEO: One URL
- Googlebot Mobile For Smart Phones With Skip Redirect
- Google Glasses: Visual Search Embedded
Google+:
Google Maps:
- Google+ Local Replaces Google Places
- Google Maps UK Powered By Google
- Google Maps App Is Gone In iOS 6!
- Traffic Data Now Back In Google Maps
- Google Maps Traffic By Day/Time For Roads
- New: Google Maps Bulk Listing Management Tool
- Google Places Updates PO Box Policy
- Google Maps Public Alerts
- Indoor Version Of Google Maps
- Google Retired Geo Sitemap Support
Google AdWords:
- Google Shut Down 800,000 Advertisers & 130 Million Ads
- Webmasters Feel Hurt By Google Shopping Move To Paid Placement
- Google AdWords Launches New Interface
- 7% Of Searches Are Misspelled: Google AdWords To Change Match Type Settings
- Google's Hotel Comparison Ads Now Live
- Google Migrating AdWords Users To "Optimize For Conversions"
- Google To Stop Allowing AdWords Ad Rotation
- Google AdWords Now Allows You To Opt Out Of Ad Rotation Change
- Google AdWords Now With 100 Automated Rules & Undo Option
- Google AdWords Now With Mobile App Targeting
- Google AdWords To Enforce Unique Sitelinks Rule
- New: Google AdWords Shows Keyword That Triggered An Ad
- AdWords Impression Share Metrics Algorithm Update & Ad Group Level
- AdWords Zip Code Targeting & Location Insertion Added
- New: Google AdWords For Video
- Pic: Google AdWords With Trusted Stores Badge
Google AdSense:
- Google AdSense Updates Design
- 300x600 Huge Ad Format Coming To Google AdSense
- Google Now Selecting Your AdSense Fonts
- Blue Arrows In Google AdSense Ads?
- More Controls Added To AdSense Ad Review Center
- Google Shutting Down AdSense For Domains
- Google AdSense Phone Support Pilot
- Google Now Offering AdSense Email Support
- Blue Arrows On Google AdSense Ads On iOS
Bing adCenter:
- adCenter Removed Age & Gender Targeting
- Microsoft adCenter Giving "Maximum QBR Penalty" For "Disallowed Characters"
- Microsoft To Power Yahoo Search Ads In UK, France and Ireland Starting Wednesday
- Bing Ads: New Name For Microsoft adCenter
Search Business:
- Why Did Marissa Mayer Leave Google To Be The CEO Of Yahoo?
- Yahoo Loses Another CEO: This Is Beyond Ridiculous
- Google's Page CEO Of The Year
- Scott Thompson Is Yahoo's New CEO
- Yahoo's Co-Founder, Jerry Yang, Resigns
- Yahoo Restructuring: Search = Connections
- Yahoo Lays Off 15% Of Work Force
- NASDAQ:FB (Facebook) Now On NASDAQ At $38
- Google's New Privacy Policy Is Easier But Scarier
Search Industry:
- SEOs Are No Longer United & I Blame The NoFollow
- Jim Boykin Buys WebmasterWorld
- Boykin Bought My First SEO Community: SEO Chat
- SEOmoz To Identify Search Spam: Automated Outing Or Helping Industry?
- SEOmoz Tries To Automate Google Update Notifications With MozCast
Conferences:
- Announcing SMX Israel 2013: Registration Now Open
- A Successful SMX Israel 2012
- Recapping SMX West 2012
- SMX Advanced 2012
Logos:
- Happy Thanksgiving Day : Logos From Google & Bing But Not Yahoo
- Google's Bob Ross 70th Birthday The Joy of Painting Doodle
- Bram Stoker Books Google Dracula Logo Upsets A Christian
- Google's Moby Dick Logo Sports Knowledge Graph Results
- Google Logo For 107th Birthday Of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo
- Happy Birthday Google! 14 Years Old Now.
- Clara Schumann Google Logo
- Google Doodle For 46th Anniversary Of Star Trek
- Montessori Education Celebrated With Google Doodle
- Google Burning Man Doodle: First Google Doodle 14 Years Ago
- Google Logo For Julia Child & India Independence Day
- London Closing Ceremony & All Google Olympics Doodles
- Google's Hurdles & Curiosity Olympics
- Google, Bing, Ask & Other Logos For London 2012 Olympics Open Ceremony
- Amelia Earhart Gets Google Logo For 115th Birthday
- 4th of July Logos From Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others
- How The Alan Turing Google Logo Works
- Happy Father's Day Logo From Google
- Happy Mother's Day From The Search Industry
- Google's King Tut Logo For Howard Carter Birthday
- Google's Home Grown Earth Day Logo
- St. George's Day Logo Via ZX Spectrum
- The Google Zipper Home Page
- Defend Your Google Search Results: Zerg Rush
- Google Logo: Eadweard J. Muybridge, Capturing Motion With Pictures
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Google Logo
- Juan Gris 125th Birthday Google Logo
- Google's & Others Spring Equinox Logo
- St. Patrick's Day Logos From Google & Bing But Not Yahoo
- Akira Yoshizawa - Google Origami Logo
- Google Frog Logo For Gioachino Rossini's Birthday & Leap Day
- Google Logo For 200th Birthday Of Charles Dickens
- 2012 Martin Luther King Google Doodle
- Nicolas Steno Google Logo: Geology Google
- Charles Addams "The Addams Family" Google Logo
- Google's Happy New Year Logo
- 2011 Christmas Logos From Search Industry
- Google Robert Noyce Chip Logo
- Day After Pearl Harbor, Google Displays Logo For Communist Diego Rivera
- Google's Mark Twain Logo
Top Stories By Visit:
- D-Day vs The First Drive-In Theater? Google Picks Theater
- Google Sending Out More Google Coolers To AdWords Advertisers
- Google Checkout Fraud (Mostly Auto): Just Be Careful
- Largest Snowflake World Record As A Google Logo
- Google's Cutts: The Next Penguin Update Will Be Big
- Nicolas Steno Google Logo: Geology Google
- How To Get a Locations Longitude/Latitude Using Google Maps on iPhone
- Cutts: Google To Target Overly SEO'ed Sites Within Weeks
- How To Set Up Google AdSense Video Units Via YouTube
- Google Maps App Is Gone In iOS 6!
- Google's Happy Holidays Sends Mixed Messages
- Google EMD Update: Exact Match Domains No Longer Rank As Well