Last Friday, Google announced the release of the Google Analytics Premium. Users now have the option to go premium for an annual flat rate fee, which still has not been disclosed. What’s included in this premium account? The premium package includes a number of exciting upgrades and new features including more insights and around the […]
Google Reorganizes Internal vs. External Backlinks
Google recently announced a change to how links are categorized in your Webmaster Tools. You may be familiar with how link data is categorized into two categories: links coming from other sites (external links) and links from within your site (internal links). Google says, “the update aims to better categorize these links in a way that more closely aligns with your idea of which links are actually from your site vs. from other sites.”
The URL Debate: Underscore vs. Dash
A common question in the SEO world has always been: What’s best to use in a URL, dashes or underscores? Do they make a difference to search engines and how our web sites rank?
According to Search Engine Land, Google and Bing handle dashes and underscores in URLs differently.
Google Introduces Faster, New Way to Submit URLs Using “Fetch as Googlebot”
Google’s Webmaster Tools now features a new option to submit your new and recently updated URLs for indexing by Google. In order to submit a URL, first you have to fetch the URL as Googlebot. Once the URL has been fetched and deemed successful, Google will give you the option to submit that URL to their index. After submitting, your URL will be crawled by the Googlebot, usually within a 24 hour time frame. Once the URL has been crawled, it will be considered for inclusion in the Google index.
Intermediate Google Analytics & Upcoming Webinars
Last month, our rock star Search Engine Marketing Manager, Caitlin Kaluza, gave a webinar on Intermediate Google Analytics. In case you missed it, we are recapping all the great information in today’s blog post. As an added SEM brain candy bonus, we’ve got all the slides from the webinar below.
Google Announces Places Changes
Google announced Thursday that Google Places pages have undergone a few very important changes. You’ll notice that third party reviews are now gone from Places pages. These changes come as a result of other consumer ratings websites like Yelp, Citysearch, and TripAdvisor claiming that Google was using their content without permission.
Places pages will still link to these third party sites for a more well rounded search experience but only after showing Google user reviews. Google will no longer integrate the actual reviews from any other consumer rating websites into the page or the Place rating system.
HOWTO: Install Google +1 Share Button on your Website (Video)
With the roll out of the new Google +1 share button, chances are you will want to add this snazzy button to help optimize your website or blog. Installing the Google +1 share button is very simple.
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Intro to Google Analytics & Making Business Decisions with Analytics
I had this privilege this morning of speaking to a group for the CultureMap Connect Series – a free monthly series that brings in speakers to talk about Social Media and the web.
I tried to keep the theme not only how to use Analytics, but what do with the numbers once you get them. How can you use Google Analytics to make Business decisions. Decisions like…
Google & Bing Admit to Having Whitelists / Exception Lists
Last week, our SEM team at Schipul – The Web Marketing Company, attended the SMX West conference in San Jose, CA. One of the much anticipated panels included “The Spam Police” featuring Google’s Matt Cutts, Bing’s Sasi Parthasarthy and Blekko’s Rich Skrenta. The panel was moderated by Search Engine Land editor-in-chief Danny Sullivan. One of […]
Optimizing your Google Places Listing
We’re here at #SMX West in beautiful San Jose, CA getting our SEO learn on. The hot topic this week – Local Search. The numbers vary depending who you ask – but around 20% of all searches and 1/3 of all mobile searches have local intent. So you’ve verified your Google Places listing. Now what? […]