SEO
Get Ready for Google Social Search!
by Kerry Dean on 01/27/2010 at 3:26 pm in Commentary, Industry News, SEO
First things first: Social Search is not Social Media! Before you read any further, read that statement again. Okay. Thank you. Now we can move forward.
If you have not heard about Social Search, it is a product that GoogleLabs launched back in Oct-2009. For the past few months, you have had the opportunity to opt [...]
Is Google Doing Away with Site Counts?
by John Greer on 12/08/2009 at 10:38 am in Commentary, Observations, SEO
As Google has been heading down the path of less (or at least, less thorough) public information for non-verified site owners, and conversely more information for verified site owners, they may be taking another step down that path.
Full StoryHoliday SEO News: Google Has Been Very Busy
by Kerry Dean on 12/07/2009 at 3:33 pm in SEO
I don’t know if you have noticed all the recent search industry headlines, but Google is dominating the news with several new features and updates. And they have done it all within the past 30 days. Here is a quick snapshot of Google’s newest additions and updates in the 2009 holiday season.
Full Story301, 302, 303, 307? And You Thought You Knew About Redirects
by Kerry Dean on 12/03/2009 at 5:44 pm in Commentary, SEO, SEO Best Practices
As an SEO, I spend a lot of my time discussing redirects, specifically 301 redirects and 302 redirects. Talking about redirects with marketing managers and e-commerce directors can be a complete powerdown for all parties involved. There have been times where I have actually seen someone’s eye go crossed while I was babbling on about temporary this and permanent that. It’s not easy explaining redirects without losing your audience, as header status codes and redirects are not the most compelling subjects. To avoid those terrible scenarios, most SEOs simply tell their clients, “301 redirects are good, and 302 redirects are bad.” 99.99% of the time, that’s all that anyone needs to know. And regardless of whether or not anyone really knows the reasoning behind that claim, the fact is that everything almost always works better for SEO by using 301 redirects.
Full StorySEO Industry Quick Hits (Nov. 30, 2009)
by Kerry Dean on 11/30/2009 at 4:05 pm in Industry News, Observations, SEO
You may call them quick hits. You may call it scatter shooting. You may just refer to it as news. Regardless, here are some recent developments in our world of search marketing.
Full StoryGoogle Caffeine Index Now Live on One Data Center
by Kerry Dean on 11/30/2009 at 11:06 am in Industry News, Observations, SEO
For anyone who is interested, Matt Cutts has confirmed that the Google Caffeine index is currently accessible on one data center (http://209.85.225.103/). You can go there and check your rankings on the new Caffeine index. However, Matt says that this data center is only returning Caffeine results about 50% of the time. C’mon, Matt. Please make it 100%. We’ve gotta test some keyword rankings. Inquiring clients want to know! :)
Full StorySEO Game Changers: Breadcrumbs in the Google Search Results
by Kerry Dean on 11/23/2009 at 5:35 pm in Commentary, Industry News, SEO
Recently I was thinking about what I call SEO game changers. These are developments that could have a major impact on the near and distant future of SEO strategies, methods and campaign management. I’m not talking about Yahoo claiming it does not support the meta keywords tag. That’s Bush League stuff that has been widely know for a long time (and, ironically, also disproved many times). I’m talking more about big stuff that will possibly affect the way that we do SEO at the core of our campaigns. Obviously, the typical buzzwords come to mind in regards to the future of SEO: social, mobile, local. But what else is there? I believe breadcrumbs in the search results is an SEO game changer. Let me tell you why.
Full Story18 Days Later: Undead GeoCities Pages Roam the Interwebs
by Kerry Dean on 11/12/2009 at 2:31 pm in Industry News, Observations, SEO
Zombieland was an awesome movie. But what happens when zombies overtake the internet in URL form? Well, I’m not exactly sure what happens. All I can tell you is that 18 days ago Yahoo closed GeoCities. Geocities had a lot of pages. Ten’s of millions. Maybe a hundred million. I’m not really sure about that either. Now that I think about it, I don’t really know much at all. However, I do know that there are at least 64 GeoCities pages that are not dead. They are undead. Here’s a list I created, sorted alphabetically.
Full StoryHow Quickly Will 301 Redirects Kick In?
by Kerry Dean on 11/11/2009 at 1:17 pm in Online Strategies, SEO, SEO Best Practices
In another attempt to pull the curtain back on this blog operation, today I am going to discuss the redirects we used to redirect all URLs from the previous blog to the current blog. Also known as 301 permanent redirects, 301 redirects are a the most important SEO item to consider when changing URL structures or moving from one domain to another. In the case of TheRangeBlog.com, we actually moved from rangeonlinemedia.com/blog to therangeblog.com. We implemented 301 redirects for all URLs, and it’s been a week since the move. But the question is: Have these 301 redirects kicked in yet?
Full StoryBlog Update: Getting Indexed by Google, Yahoo & Bing
by Kerry Dean on 11/10/2009 at 5:27 pm in Online Strategies, SEO, SEO Best Practices
Last Tuesday morning (Nov. 3) we launched TheRangeBlog.com. When you move a blog from one domain to another, there are a lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross. I did what any project manager would do: I came up with a simple checklist. Many of the items are SEO best practices for redirects. In this case, we had to keep in mind the fact that we were moving from one domain to another. Here is what we did.
Full Story