Google Webmaster’s new feature - associates to manage your YouTube presence

Almost all organizations have multiple presences on the web in different social media websites. It's important that visitors to these other properties have confidence that they are actually associated with the Webmaster Tools site.

Google webmaster announce a new feature in Webmaster Tools that allows webmasters to add "associates" -- trusted users who can act on behalf of your site in other Google products. Unlike site owners and users, associates can't view site data or take any site actions in Webmaster Tools, but they are authorized to perform specific tasks in other products.

For this initial launch, members of YouTube's partner program that have created a YouTube channel for their site can now link the two together. By doing this, your YouTube channel will be displayed as the "official channel" for your website.

To add or change associates within Webmaster Tools

1. On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want.
2. Under Configuration, click Associates.
   
3. Click Add a new associate.
4. In the text box, type the email address of the person you want to add.
5. Select the type of association you want.
   
6. Click Add.
   

Management within YouTube

It’s also possible for users to request association from a site’s webmaster.

1. Log in to your YouTube partner account.
2. Click on the user menu and choose Settings > Associated Website.
3. Fill in the page you would like to associate your channel with.  
4. Click Add.        
5.  If you’re a verified owner of the site, you’re done. But if someone else in your organization manages the website, the association will be marked Pending. The owner receives a notification with an option to approve or deny the request.
   
6. After approval is granted, navigate back to this page and click Refresh to complete the association.

Through associates, webmasters can easily and safely allow others to associate their website with YouTube channels.

Google Finally Takes A Clear Stance On Mobile SEO Practices

Google says there are three basic configurations when going mobile, however they do seem to strongly recommend going with the responsive design approach.

1. Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device. This is Google’s recommended configuration.
2. Sites that dynamically serve all devices on the same set of URLs, but each URL serves different HTML (and CSS) depending on whether the user agent is a desktop or a mobile device.
3. Sites that have a separate mobile and desktop sites.

Responsive Design Approach

Google says if possible, they recommend you go with the responsive design approach. This is where you use CSS3 media queries to alter the way the page renders on mobile devices. In this case, there is one URL, one content, one HTML code but CSS media queries to specify which CSS rules apply for the browser displaying the page. Google says the advantages of this method include having one URL making it easier for your users to interact with the page and enable Google’s “algorithms to assign the indexing properties to your content.” It is also more efficient when Google is crawling your content because Google doesn’t have to crawl multiple pages.

Device-Specific HTML Approach

If you are going with the dynamic serving configuration, which is fine, Google recommends you use the Vary HTTP header to give Google a hint that the content and CSS may change based on the useragent. The header is commonly used for caching purposes but can also be used in this situation to communicate the content has changed based on the useragent. In this case, it would be used as a indexing and crawling signal for Googlebot-Mobile.
Pierre from Google explains:

As for the separate mobile site configuration, since there are many ways to do this, our recommendation introduces annotations that communicate to our algorithms that your desktop and mobile pages are equivalent in purpose; that is, the new annotations describe the relationship between the desktop and mobile content as alternatives of each other and should be treated as a single entity with each alternative targeting a specific class of device. These annotations will help us discover your smartphone-optimized content and help our algorithms understand the structure of your content, giving it the best chance of performing well in our search results.

Google has a developer site with more on how to implement this solution. Please note that depending on if you go with the new URL versus the same URL, the annotations Google asks you to use are different. So during your implementation, please read the developer site.
(1) When you use the different HTML approach but the same URL, Google wants you to use the HTTP Vary Header as a hint for GoogleBot-Smartphone to crawl the site.
(2) When you use the different HTML approach but a different URL, Google wants you to use a rel=alternate on the desktop version and use a canonical on the mobile version.
Again, when possible, go the responsive approach but when you cannot, Google can and does support the device-specific HTML approach but remember to communicate to Google that the content is changing based on the useragent.

Bing Is For Doing Things It Tells You Not To Do

Google has confirmed the rumors of a Panda refresh happening over the weekend.
Google said this refresh started rolling out on Friday, June 8th and has an impact of less than 1% of search queries in the U.S. and about 1% worldwide.
As I said, the search forums took notice to major changes in the search results, specifically impacting sites that were originally hit by the Panda update. I reached out to Google this morning for a confirmation and they have confirmed the update.
Previously, Google pushed out Panda 3.6 on April 27th, about 6 weeks before this update. Google tends to do Panda and even Penguin refreshes every one to two months.
Along comes his friend Neil Black who suggests jumping off a cliff. OK, a big rock, though some of the videos he links to call it a cliff jump:

That link, by the way, doesn’t work for me. Nor can I figure out any way to get a page like you see above. Bing Videos doesn’t host content as with YouTube, so you can’t have a page of your own uploaded videos as seems to be appearing in the ad

Postscript: Mystery solved! Bing emailed me to say that this type of page appears if you share a link from the results. So if you found a video in Bing, then shared that link through Bing, you’d get to a page like shows in the ad. In fact, here it is.

But back to Kevin, who does a search for “hawaii flights” on Bing and is on his way. Friends keep telling him about cool things to do, such as hidden trails and to try spicy poke. Eventually, however, his date with the cliff jump arrives. Here he goes!

How to embed Flash Player content using SWFObject dynamic publishing

STEP 1: Create alternative content using standards compliant markup

SWFObject's dynamic embed method follows the principle of progressive enhancement and replaces alternative HTML content for Flash content when enough JavaScript and Flash plug-in support is available. First define your alternative content and label it with an id:

 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
  
    
     http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
  
  
    
     id="myContent">
      Alternative content
    

 

STEP 2: Include the SWFObject JavaScript library in the head of your HTML page

The SWFObject library consists of one external JavaScript file. SWFObject will be executed as soon as it is read and will perform all DOM manipulations as soon as the DOM is loaded - for all browsers that support this, like IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera 9+ - or otherwise as soon as the onload event fires:

 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
  
    
     http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
  
     type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js">

  
  
     id="myContent">
      Alternative content
    
  

STEP 3: Embed your SWF with JavaScript

swfobject.embedSWF(swfUrl, id, width, height, version, expressInstallSwfurl, flashvars, params, attributes, callbackFn) has five required and five optional arguments:

1. swfUrl (String, required) specifies the URL of your SWF
2. id (String, required) specifies the id of the HTML element (containing your alternative content) you would like to have replaced by your Flash content
3. width (String, required) specifies the width of your SWF
4. height (String, required) specifies the height of your SWF
5. version (String, required) specifies the Flash player version your SWF is published for (format is: "major.minor.release" or "major")
6. expressInstallSwfurl (String, optional) specifies the URL of your express install SWF and activates Adobe express install. Please note that express install will only fire once (the first time that it is invoked), that it is only supported by Flash Player 6.0.65 or higher on Win or Mac platforms, and that it requires a minimal SWF size of 310x137px.
7. flashvars (Object, optional) specifies your flashvars with name:value pairs
8. params (Object, optional) specifies your nested object element params with name:value pairs
9. attributes (Object, optional) specifies your object's attributes with name:value pairs
10. callbackFn (JavaScript function, optional) can be used to define a callback function that is called on both success or failure of creating a Flash plug-in

The Future of SEO Has Arrived

Google has finally made a massive shift in the way they operate, and we’re talking more than just updates and over optimization penalties.
We’ve been covering in great detail the latest search updates in Google, and I’ve shared some powerful tricks to take advantage of all the recent changes.
Today we’re going to look into the future of search and SEO and come out the other side with a clear picture of what’s next.
I’ll share with you new strategies I’ve already begun to put into place, and ones that you need to employ to stay relevant in this new world of search.
What happened?
Yesterday Google just announced that they are starting to roll out something they call “The Knowledge Graph”
Essentially, this is a fundamental shift in the nature of search and the results presented.
They refer to this update as “Things not strings.”  In other words, they are more interested in understanding the relationship of searches and terms instead of simply matching listings to series of phrases.
I previously conjectured that related keywords had changed and was a large part in recent listing getting jumbled around.
This latest news seems to support that idea, as now more than ever relationships will make a big difference in the results displayed.  It would seem that they had to focus extensively on decoding these relationships to develop such an update.
To illustrate this new approach, the example given was a search for “Taj Mahal.”  You might be searching for the building or maybe something entirely different like the musician.

In Google’s latest revision you will have the option to choose.  It will already know there are more varieties.
In addition, they are looking to include more facts and information related to the topic according to these related searches.
But How Do They Do That?
In short, I predict that the future of search will be built around a new markup language.  It’s complicated and barely adopted right now.  Which means huge opportunity.
WordPress will change, plugins and themes will be developed and a whole new segment of search marketing will grow from this change.

code level approach will only continue to grow as these markups will allow Google to better understand the content and relationships inside each page of your site.
In other words, the standard listing will become one of the least common ways to get search visibility.
What I have been doing, and how you can capitalize on the changes.
I’ve already been moving AWAY from focusing on rankings only, and it’s time that you join the big picture as well.
For years we’ve heard that content is king.
Unfortunately that statement is misleading.  People focused almost exclusively on written content, and so the era of article blasting, spinning, and mass publication was born.
It grew until finally, something had to be done.  Links were devalued, over-optimization penalties were developed, and the rankings shuffled like never before.
Today I’m telling you that it’s time to employ a multi format content strategy if you want to stay relevant.
Search is too unstable and it’s time to get a backup plan.

It’s time to start making better videos and images, and packaging them with your content.

It’s time to start sharing through social media, and joining the conversations in your market.

It’s time to develop that email list, and take control of your traffic.

It’s time to focus on connecting with your audience instead of watching visitors fly in and back out from  a handful of good search listings.

If you take my advice and start now, then when the time comes it will be easier to adopt these markup changes.
Your content will be ready and waiting.  Your audience will be established.  Your videos and images will be created.
And as a result you’ll be the one to appear in all areas of your market, across all the new areas of visibility.
Laddies and gentleman, get ready because we are moving into an entirely new generation of search engine visibility where connections are critical.
The focus on top ranking and most searched keywords will become more and more irrelevant.  Your traffic will come from relationships, and entirely new types of listings.
So get out there and get connected before it’s too late.

Don't Let The Wrong Landing Pages Destroy Your PPC Campaign

You can generate as many clicks as possible but unless a good proportion of these convert to sales then much of the benefit of the clicks has been wasted. You maximise the conversion of a click to a sale by the correct use of landing pages.
Many of the landing pages for PPC (eg for Google Adwords) that I have seen send the person who clicked on the ad to the home page of the website. Often and especially in the case of a product being offered for sale the home page is just not targeted enough to meet the needs of the searcher and this inevitably results in poor conversion of clicks to sales and thus on the ROI of the campaign.
When a searcher enters a search term into the search box the actual term is a very good indication of what the searcher wants (referred to as MOTIVATION). A very good example would be a searcher entering "Canon Camera ABC234" . If the advertiser sold a range of Canon Cameras it would be quite wrong to send the searcher to a general page about Canon Cameras. It would be important to send the searcher to a page that is undoubtedly about the model "Canon Camera ABC234". In essence the searcher has told you EXACTLY what is wanted. It is then incumbent upon the provider to satisfy this MOTIVATION. A failure to do so will more often than not lead to abandonment of the site clicked through to.
Of course the implication of this approach is that for a successful PPC campaign  more than a single landing page is required.

Site Performance, Subscriber Stats & Robots.txt Tool Removed From Google Webmaster Tools

Google announced they are removing three features from Google Webmaster Tools. Google made the announcement on the Google Webmaster Central blog saying the three features going away include the site performance report, the subscriber stats and the robots.txt creation tool.
Google placed reversed the order of these features when they wrote about it, trying to mitigate the importance of removing some of these features. Site Performance going away is going to be frustrating for a lot of Google Webmaster Tools users. Subscriber stats is not as important and robots.txt is really not a big deal for most webmasters.

Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (formerly adCenter Add-in for Excel ^Beta) is a keyword research and optimization tool that operates in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and now 2010. It provides keyword expansion, research, pricing and KPI data, allowing you to maximize marketing ROI for your paid search and content ad campaigns. The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence tool lets you:

• Quickly and easily build out lists of suggested keywords and develop informed keyword strategies based on actual Bing and Yahoo! network data, including: relevance, volume, cost history, demographic and geographic.
• Leverage actual historic and forecasted monthly query and content data to optimize your keyword campaigns based on what potential customers are actually doing, and spend more on what works and less on what doesn’t.
• Tailor your bidding strategy based on pricing data for keyword-specific metrics such as clicks, impressions, position, click-through rate and cost per click.
• Gather pricing KPIs for specific businesses to determine the monetization potential of a vertical and how well it is performing.

Download Microsoft Advertising Intelligence today to create more effective paid search and content campaigns. Also make sure to check out our helpful MAI overview tutorial to get the most out of our tool.

Ready to get started?

• Make sure you have Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or 2010 installed and closed.
• If you don’t have Microsoft Office Excel 2010, visit Office Online for a free 60-day trial version.
• Uninstall any previous version of Microsoft adCenter Add-in for Excel.
• For Microsoft Office Excel 2007 users you will need to download Visual Studio 2010 Tools before installing the Microsoft Advertising Tool.

Source: http://advertising.microsoft.com/small-business/adcenter-downloads/microsoft-advertising-intelligence

Google Panda Updates between November, 2011 - March, 2012

Panda 3.1  -   18th November   2011 - Minor Panda algorithm data refresh (affects <1% of all searches).

o   References:- http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/ten-recent-algorithm-changes.html

·         Panda 3.2  -   15th January 2012 - algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result

o   This algorithmic change affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page.

o   References : http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

·         Panda 3.3  -  27th February 2012 - 40 changes reported including related searches, sitelinks, indexing, SafeSearch, site query update, link evaluation, improved local results  and more

o   References:- http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/02/search-quality-highlights-40-changes.html

·         Panda 3.4   -  23rd March 2012 – 50 changes reported for March including Improvements to handling of symbols for indexing, Sitelinks data refresh, Better indexing of profile pages, Improvements to results for navigational queries, +1 button in search for more countries and domains

o  References:- http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/04/search-quality-highlights-50-changes.html

How Google Change May Mistakenly Turn Search Traffic into Referral Traffic

Referrers are sort of a Caller ID for web browsers. They tell a web site where someone came from. For example, if you click on a link from one page to visit the next, the page you were on is passed along as referrer information that can be seen using web analytics tools. Sometimes this is also called “referer” information, due to a long-ago misspelling around the referrer standard. “Referral” is also sometimes used.

Last October, Google began blocking referrer information from being passed along by those searching on its search engine, if they were signed-in and using a secure connection.

Google said the change was made to better protect privacy. It turned out to be a precursor to preventing “eavesdropping” of especially private searches that might happen as part of Search Plus Your World.

However, despite saying the move was to protect privacy, Google went out of its way to continue passing along referrer data to paid advertisers. Other loopholes also remain. The move is incredibly hypocritical. See the articles at the end of this story to understand more about the blocking and the hypocrisy in greater depth

If Google is already withholding search term data for signed-in users, then what else could it really pull back? How about reporting even if a search happened.

Beginning in April, Google’s going to begin using the referrer meta tag to report what it calls a “simplified” referrer. The tag will let it override the real referrer that would go out, even what’s left of that referrer after search terms have been stripped.

How The Referrer Meta Tag Turns Searches Into Referrals

Consider a search for “hotels.” If you do that search and click on one of the top listings, say for Travelocity, the actual URL you’re going to looks like this:

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=hotels&source=web&cd=1 &ved=0CJABEBYwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.travelocity.com%2FHotels &ei=EftoT6eRLaKxiQK5uYGSBw&usg=AFQjCNHw3v58SOrf2HWCsE6AraxFouCmJQ

The URL doesn’t lead directly to the site. Instead, it redirects through Google itself, in a way that Google can record what’s in the URL to better track the click.

I’ve bolded how Google embeds in the URL information that someone searched for the word “hotels” and clicked on the first listing in the results, which in turn took them to the page at Travelocity, also shown in bold.

If this search is done when someone is signed-in using a secure connection, Google drops the search term portion. It basically looks like this:

    http://www.google.com/url?q=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.travelocity.com%2FHotels

An analytics program can tell that a search happened by seeing the “q=” part in the URL, but the actual term itself has been stripped out by Google. So while Google Analytics can’t report what the search words were (and thus says “not provided”), it still can tell that a search happened.

The new change takes out everything but the start of the referrer. Do a search on Google.com using Chrome, and this is all that will be reported:

    https://google.com

Because there’s no indicator that a search happened, an analytics program may interpret that people have come from a link on Google.com rather than doing a search there. This means that search traffic would mistakenly get recorded as what’s called “referral” traffic.