SEO Tidbits: May 2011

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Panda Slaying

@mattcutts and @google had better watch out: a University of Miami-Coral Gables Physicist and his team have published a formula that may predict when the next development in Web search technology equivalent in scope to Google’s Panda Technologytm will emerge. By Michael Martinez

Characteristics of the Google Panda Algorithm

Despite much discussion, analysis, and guesswork across hundreds of Websites, it seems that the true nature of Google’s Panda Technologytm continues to elude the algorithm chasers. By Michael Martinez

The Insanity That is an SEO

A plane crashed into a ship and a total of three people aboard both vessels died: a pirate, a lawyer, and an SEO. As their souls came before Saint Pete...By Michael Martinez

Query Breadth

Do the keywords in page titles on a Google search for [Digital Camera] carry more weight than the keywords in titles on a search for [Canon Rebel Digital Camera]? It’s a possibility. By Bill Slawski

Behavior Data

In a blog post at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog on Monday, High-quality sites algorithm goes global, incorporates user feedback, Google Fellow Amit Singhal announced some changes to the way that Google ranks web pages, including the spreading of the Panda update to all English language Google users, and the incorporation of data into search results about sites that have been blocked by users in those results. By Bill Slawski

A Hint of What Google's Social Network Might Look Like?

A screenshot from the patent showing messages, snippets, and updates from a number of people in a twitter like view

Google is becoming more social on a number of levels, but really doesn’t have a central hub where those social interactions can all be seen at once. By Bill Slawski

The Google Video Patent

A Google Video Preferences set up screen that would allow you to enter your zip code and TV listings provider.

Back in 2005, Google filed a patent application on Ranking video articles which gives some insights into Google’s future plans for what they might do with video, and some of the possible ranking algorithms they would consider using. By Bill Slawski

Microsoft's Approach to Identifying Quality Search

A flowchart from the Microsoft patent showing how patterns involving user-behavior might influence dynamically improving search results.

When we see a change at one of the major search engines like the Panda update at Google, it’s not a bad idea to look at whether or not one of the other search engines has done something similar, or at least published some research on a similar approach. By Bill Slawski

10 Super Easy SEO Copywriting Tips for Improved Link Building

The “secrets” of copywriting have existed since before the ancient Greeks. Generations of Don Drapers have perfected the craft. Today we use computer analysis and data mining to uncover the most effective SEO practices. By Cyrus Shepard

Google Analytics Now Tracks Page Load Speed

Improving site speed is crucially important, Craig at Distilled recently wrote a phenomenal post site speed for dummies which really breaks down WHY improving site speed is a high ROI activity and there was a great Youmoz post recently published which explains HOW to improve page load speed: Optimizing Page Speed - Actionable Tips For SEOs and Web Developers. By Tom Critchlow

Optimized page speed

Page speed has become a factor for ranking in the search engines. Although, for the engines it's not a make or break factor but I've always felt that it is for visitors. By Ed Baxter

Matt Cutts: Using 'NonIndex, Follow' in robot meta tags

Imagine a scenario in which you have an HTML sitemap but for one reason or another you do not want Google to return the sitemap itself within the search results.