Below is live coverage of the Current SEO and Google panel from the PubCon 2011 conference.
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Barry Schwartz:
10:03:42 am
Brian Ussery, Bruce Clay, Stephan Spencer
Moderator:
Joe Laratro
Moderator:
Joe Laratro
Barry Schwartz:
10:03:46 am
We start soon
Barry Schwartz:
10:04:06 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:07:23 am
Starting in 5 minutes...
Barry Schwartz:
10:14:16 am
Bruce Clay is up first...
Barry Schwartz:
10:14:53 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:15:19 am
In the beginning there were ten blue links...
Barry Schwartz:
10:15:59 am
Then Google started to personalize the results
Barry Schwartz:
10:16:46 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:17:34 am
Now there are some conflicts, there is an ambiguity problem when you search for hammer... 1st result is nutrion, then art museum, then bowling bowl, etc.
Barry Schwartz:
10:17:46 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:18:03 am
You can see they picked a topics like of results.
Barry Schwartz:
10:18:38 am
But if you change the order of your search, the results change.
Barry Schwartz:
10:19:05 am
SEO is impacted by the ambiguity issue. Google has embraced behavior and persona in tailoring search results.
Barry Schwartz:
10:19:13 am
The issue with SEO, there is no single ranking.
Barry Schwartz:
10:19:54 am
That means, we as SEOs need to know how to target users.
Barry Schwartz:
10:19:58 am
Individual users
Barry Schwartz:
10:20:15 am
Google Panda updates is a change within their overall scheme of going towards individual results.
Barry Schwartz:
10:20:46 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:21:42 am
What they are finding that the quality of your page is tied to your overall links to your site. They do "link pruning" and they remove low quality links, when they remove bad links, your Panda penalty goes away.
Barry Schwartz:
10:21:56 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:22:05 am
You need engagement to win in Google, Google is looking at it.
Barry Schwartz:
10:23:02 am
Supposedly, if you have a video on your page above the fold, your conversion rate goes up. And Google also loves ranking videos.
Barry Schwartz:
10:24:14 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:24:33 am
+1s only influence your rankings within your social network of friends.
Barry Schwartz:
10:24:52 am
Privacy = "not provided" in terms of Google Analytics
Barry Schwartz:
10:26:23 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:27:06 am
Not posting every slight by the way.... Bruce said he posted his new web site months ago and there was no SEO change impact to it. The concept is, are you fresher than your competition?
Barry Schwartz:
10:27:19 am
Fresh is compared to your competition
Barry Schwartz:
10:27:52 am
The algorithm changes
Barry Schwartz:
10:27:56 am
Where is Google going?
Barry Schwartz:
10:28:30 am
Google is going to generate more revenue. But they are being forced to go to an individual level, personalized to the likes of a searcher, with friend data, etc.
Barry Schwartz:
10:28:37 am
So our SEO job is harder.
Barry Schwartz:
10:29:14 am
So personalization will determine rankings and SEOs will be measured by traffic and not rankings.
Barry Schwartz:
10:29:30 am
Local results will be much more prominent... HE thinks as much as 70% of the results
Barry Schwartz:
10:30:51 am
He predicts there will be a local paid inclusions model. Pay to be included in local results.
Barry Schwartz:
10:31:35 am
Bruce is done.
Barry Schwartz:
10:32:04 am
Brian Ussery from Nine by Blue is now up.
Barry Schwartz:
10:32:21 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:32:43 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:33:06 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:33:17 am
Panda took care of the area between spam and not spam, the low quality area
Barry Schwartz:
10:33:52 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:33:55 am
Some Panda history...
Barry Schwartz:
10:34:34 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:35:28 am
So when they do Panda update, look at your analytics to see if your traffic dropped around that date. It isn't always Panda.
Barry Schwartz:
10:35:38 am
You can also look at your click through rate.
Barry Schwartz:
10:35:57 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:37:08 am
Low quality content is aggregated, paraphrased, generic, duplicated, scraped and plagiarized.
Barry Schwartz:
10:37:31 am
Low quality content lacks expertise, research, citations and organization.
Barry Schwartz:
10:38:30 am
Low aulity includes bad grammer, typos, etc
Barry Schwartz:
10:38:49 am
Google came up a list of Qs for their quality raters
Barry Schwartz:
10:39:07 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:40:26 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:40:30 am
+1s are now in SERPs
Barry Schwartz:
10:42:14 am
Google knows a heck of a lot about you. Ifyou have Android, they know your cell #, where you are, what you are searching for, so much more.
Barry Schwartz:
10:43:25 am
Brian is done, next up, Stephan Spencer
Barry Schwartz:
10:43:48 am
Barry Schwartz:
10:44:05 am
Google is a moving target. They made 516 updates to its algo in 2010, they tested 13,000 + updates that year.
Barry Schwartz:
10:44:28 am
Google just released a freshness update, affecting 35% of queries, so make sure to publish content frequently
Barry Schwartz:
10:45:10 am
The Google quality raters guide was leaked recently again
Barry Schwartz:
10:45:39 am
Main points: Malware can ruin ratings, consider the user intent and content should include applicable knowledge, courses of action and navigation.
Barry Schwartz:
10:46:23 am
When writing content, make sure to write it so all your customers can understand it.
Barry Schwartz:
10:46:32 am
Content is rated on helpful it is to users.
Barry Schwartz:
10:46:47 am
Think about what the next action the user will take from a web page.
Barry Schwartz:
10:47:02 am
Low quality content can lead to bad quality.
Barry Schwartz:
10:47:19 am
Raters must use Firefox, so make sure your pages work well in Firefox.
Barry Schwartz:
10:47:44 am
Keyword stuffing ratio is up to raters... URLs stuffed with keywords can be spam. Meta tags do not mean spam.
Barry Schwartz:
10:48:27 am
Panda Update:
- If a website has a significant number of low quality pages, it can affect the whole site.
- Google is measuring user satisfaction on your web site.
- If a website has a significant number of low quality pages, it can affect the whole site.
- Google is measuring user satisfaction on your web site.
Barry Schwartz:
10:48:59 am
Best Practices:
- Prevent stub pages
- Look at your site from a searchers perspective
- Prevent stub pages
- Look at your site from a searchers perspective
Barry Schwartz:
10:49:07 am
Panda updates are not part of main algo updates
Barry Schwartz:
10:53:11 am
More Google Tidbits:
- Google Instant interferes with adding URL parameters to SERPs URLs
- Deconstructing grouped but not indented results
- Cached link has moved to the previews
- Google Image Search upload feature for similar images
- Google Labs is dead (Sets, Squared)
- Google Instant interferes with adding URL parameters to SERPs URLs
- Deconstructing grouped but not indented results
- Cached link has moved to the previews
- Google Image Search upload feature for similar images
- Google Labs is dead (Sets, Squared)
Barry Schwartz:
10:54:35 am
Google is cunting Twitter links
Barry Schwartz:
10:54:40 am
Twitter links are nofollowed
Barry Schwartz:
10:55:29 am
That is all, Q&A time
Barry Schwartz:
10:56:56 am
Skipping next session, will be back 1:30 PDT 4:30 EDT
Barry Schwartz:
10:57:31 am
Okay, see you then.
