Webcology #314 – Google Clouds and Canadian Shoppers are Shopping by Phone

Canadian Shoppers Consult Smartphones Before Buying; Facebook Hyper-Local Ads

Air Date: October 9, 2014

We look at

  • The newly emerging in a feature interview with Jeff James, editor of the .
  • Canadian shoppers won’t make purchases in-store before pulling out their phone, suggests this.
  • Facebook Launches .
  • Google+, says Googles new head of social media David Besbris.
  • TopSEOs removed from
  • A PubCon 2014 with David McKenzie-Kong from .

The “Look Before You Keep” edition

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Don’t Leave Your SEO in the Hands of Amateurs – LinkedIn Xpost

Alan published a strong piece at LinkedIn yesterday, “”. In it, he recounts a quick story about a Digital Always Media client who approached us after well-intentioned but poorly informed mistake cost them all their Google traffic. Here is an excerpt from the article.

A company (now a new client) took it upon themselves to implement SSL (switched their website to secured) an SEO technique based on something they had read in August. From what they read they thought it could help with rankings and would drive more organic search traffic from Google.

Result of their efforts was that organic search traffic virtually drops to ZERO both from Google and Bing even the number of times they were appearing in the search results (the blue line in the graphic) bottomed out at below 500.. After 2 weeks of almost no traffic, I got the call to help figure out what was wrong.

To read more of this article, please .

Posted in Alan K'necht by Jim Hedger. No Comments

Webcology #313 – SEMPO Organizing Code of Ethics Meeting

SEMPO Organizes Search Marketing Code of Ethics Meeting

Air Date: October 2, 2014

We interview SEMPO President Emeritus and SEO Rockstar host Chris Boggs about the SEMPO led initiative to organize a Search Marketing Congress. The point to the Congress is to frame a search marketing code of ethics. Discussions will take place at Pubcon 2014 in Las Vegas later this month. This is quickly becoming a hot-button issue in the digital marketing community.

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Webcology #312 – Google Severely Hits Private Blog Networks

Matt Cutts Returns, Taunts Black Hat SEOs ; Google Severely Hits Private Blog Networks

Air Date: September 25, 2014

  • Based on his taunting of black-hat SEOs in Twitter, Dave and I speculated Matt Cutts might be signaling his return to Google. (spoiler alert, we were wrong)
  • Google hit a few private blog networks with extreme penalties and,
  • For a short time after the AliBaba IPO, Yahoo! was technically worthless, at least on paper. Dave and I bend our brains explaining how that went down.

The “For What IT’s Worth” edition.

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Webcology #311 – Apple CEO Tim Cook Accuses Google Of Gross Privacy Violations

Apple CEO Tim Cook Accuses Google Of Gross Privacy Violations; Google News Publishers Reporting Smooth HTTPS Migration

Air Date: September 18, 2014

  • Apple CEO Tim Cook accuses Google of gross privacy violations. Apple tries to distance itself from Google on privacy issues
  • Google News publishers reporting HTTPS migration is going smoothly
  • Webmasters reporting Google sitelinks search box is now directing queries to their sites
  • Bing says it removed approximately 130 million URLs for keyword stuffing.

The “My Servers Don’t Stink” edition.

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Webcology #310 – This FB Update Might Self-Destruct

Facebook Testing Self-Destructing Status Updates? More Penguin and Google Algorithm Update Info

Air Date: September 11, 2014

Dave and I discussed a wide range of topics today including but not limited to;

  • Facebooks announcement that it is testing a process to allow status updates to self-destruct after a period of time
  • More information about Penguin and Google algorithm updates
  • Google Hangouts now offers free voice calls to phone numbers in the United States and Canada
  • The Economic Viability of Live Digital Conferences
  • Google Knowledge Graph now has an In the News box.

The “Mission Implausible” edition

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Webcology #309 – September brings the SEO Holiday Season

SEOs! – Here Come the Holidays! – Could DuckDuckGo Overtake Bing?

Air Date: September 4, 2014

It’s September. That means only one thing to SEOs.

  • It’s Christmas Time, or, time to get ready for the Christmas shopping season
  • Google Hangouts are now being referenced in search results
  • Google will refund at least $19million to parents billed for purchases their children made in the Google Play environment
  • A disavow file is now enough to clean out non-organic links, as soon as a Penguin update takes place
  • Could DuckDuckGo ever overtake Bing?

The “Happy Happy Ho Ho” edition.

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Webcology #308 – Why You Should Care About PageRank

Why You Should Care About PageRank; Amazon Plans Their Own Online Advertising

Air Date: August 28, 2014

Believe it or not, there are compelling reasons to care about PageRank.

  • Dave and I discuss the meaning of PageRank and how it effects the way Google sees the web.
  • Google chairman, Eric Schmidt says unbreakable encryption is coming. (Sounds like he’s got somethin’ to hide eh?)
  • Amazon is planning to launch its own online advertising program. Amazon will replace all Google ads. What might this mean for Google?
  • Google wins $1.3million from a patent troll
  • and, a Google spam patent to reverse engineer local listings

The, “It’s Not What You Think” edition.

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Webcology #307 – Google AdWords Takes Out Exact and Phrase Match

Google AdWords Takes Out Exact and Phrase Match; Google DMCA Notices Reach Record High

Air Date: August 21, 2014

  • Google announced it was killing off Exact and Phrase Match in AdWords. Dave and I discuss the implications for advertisers.
  • Google WebmasterTools is now more important for link discovery, and for link clean up. Dave and I cover how GWT is used to check for and about links.
  • Google DMCA take-down notices reach a record high (and I’m happy to have helped)
  • and, an interview with an artificial intelligence, of a sort. I spend a few minutes interviewing RustyBrick’s crotchety answering service attending AI, Lenny.

The “Ooops, They’ll Do It Again” edition.

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Webcology #306 – More Google Penalties for Guest Blogging

Google Penalties Guest Blogging for Content Spam and, Manual Spam Action in Webmaster Tools

Air Date: August 14, 2014

Fun episode covering topics such as,

  • Google prepping to issue penalties for content spam guest blogging (vs link spam)?
  • Google penalties reappearing In Manual Spam Action of Webmaster Tools.
  • Why have three  Google executives left for Chinese companies in the last year?
  • Google takes a page from the Pentagons radical ideas factory DARPA.

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Webcology #305 – Google Boosting Secure Sites and the SEO Reaction

Google Gives Ranking Boost To Secure HTTPS/SSL Sites and the SEO Community’s Reaction

Air Date: August 7, 2014

Google is now giving secure sites (https:///clork/bons/danf.js?k=0&/clork/bons/danf.js?k=0&/clork/bons/danf.js?k=0&/clork/bons/danf.js?k=0&/clork/bons/danf.js?k=0&/clork/bons/danf.js?k=0& or, SSL), a boost in search rankings. Given the myriad of implications, this announcement has generated a strong response from the SEO community. Dave and I cover as many as we can in the feature segment. We also work our way through the question, will Google ever update PageRank again? We cover the removal of 50 Wikipedia links from European Union search results under the controversial Right to be Forgotten legislation.

Speaking of being forgotten, Dave proclaims his pro-activity following the recent story of a Russian hacker amassing over 1billion Internet passwords.

The Right to Forget it all securely edition.

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Webcology #304 – Wither the Watch. Search Engine Watch Editor Danny Goodwin Resigns

Search Engine Watch Editor Departs, Google Domains Invites Available, Google’s Local Algo Pigeon

Air Date: July 31, 2014

Jennifer Slegg joins Dave and Jim for an interview where Search Engine Watch editor-in-chief, Danny Goodwin announces he’ll be leaving SEW the following day. For those interested in filling in parts of the back-story around the ClickZ / Search Engine Strategies / Search Engine Watch drama, this is a must-listen interview.

We also discuss Google’s entrance into the domain selling business with Google Domains, and talk through the signals an update to Google’s local search algorithm called Pigeon is looking for.

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Webcology #303 – Google Rewrites Quality Rating Guide

Google Rewrites Quality Rating Guide; Are Web Analytics Dying?, Huge Facebook Q2 Earnings

Air Date: July 24, 2014

With special guest host Jennifer Slegg, founder of the .

Jennifer and I discussed a piece she wrote, “”.

We also talked about Google engineers talking about working on Penguin, the questions around web analytics, and marvel at Facebook’s second quarter earnings:  788 million dollars  up from 331 million last year. Facebook stock  more than doubled  year over year.

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Webcology #302 – Real SEOs Solve Problems

Microsoft To Cut 18,000 Jobs; Real SEOs Solve Problems; A New Google Sandbox

Air Date: July 17, 2014

The show starts with talk of the announcement that 18,000 jobs will be cut at Microsoft. We then move to an article I wrote for the SEMPost that had gotten a lot of attention in the industry, “”.  Closing out the show, Dave and I speculate on what appears to be a new sort of sandboxing at Google. All in all a really good episode.

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Webcology #301 – 10 Lies SEO Gurus Might Tell You

10 Lies You Should Never Believe From SEO Gurus :: Gated Content :: Flaws in EU Right to be Forgotten Ruling

Air Date: July 10, 2014

With special guest host, Carolyn Shelby, Director of Director of SEO and SEM for Tribune Publishing .

Carolyn and I discuss Gated Content,  Matt Cutts taking a leave of absence, 10 Lies You Should Never Believe From SEO Gurus,  Europe starting to see the flaws in the right to be forgotten ruling, and a Google executive’s death on Santa Cruz yacht which turned extra lurid with the arrest of a well known local prostitute. The “Things we do for money edition…”

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