Google Issues: Crack Down On Low Quality Exact Match Domains

Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean sites with keywords they hope to rank for in their domain names are now doomed. Rather, the change aims to target low quality sites that might be riding on on the basis of exact matching.

For a broader perspective on Google algorithm updates, see The Return of the Google Dance on our sister site, Marketing Land. As for ranking factors overall, be sure to see our Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors.

This should come as no surprise, as Cutts said a couple years ago that Google will be looking at why exact domain matches rank well when they shouldn’t, in some cases.

Likely over the coming days, you will see shifts in the search results where many sites that may rank well based on being an exact match domain may no longer rank as high in Google’s search results.

The head of Google web spam fighting team Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that Google will be rolling out a “small” algorithm change that will “reduce low-quality ‘exact-match’ domains” from showing up so highly in the search results.

Cutts said this will impact 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. He added it is “unrelated to Panda/Penguin. Panda is a Google algorithm filter aimed at fighting low quality content; Penguin is one aimed at fighting web spam.

Best Ways to Make Your Business More Social

 

Large companies have been utilizing social media for years to interact and engage with consumers. Small business owners are beginning to realize the benefits of getting social with their company. Your small business can reach more potential customers and strengthen loyalty with current ones by maintaining an active online presence.

If you’re thinking about getting your business into the social media world, here are ten things you can do to get more social:

1. Social Share Marketing Materials

Think of all the printed materials you use for marketing purposes: flyers, coupons, sales brochures. You use them to hand out to potential and current customers. You can also share those things online through sites like Scribd and SlideShare to allow easy access and sharing.

2. Claim Your Name

Use your company name for all of your social media sites. This uniformity will reinforce your branding and prevent anyone else from using your name as their own. You also want your profile picture to be the same throughout or at least very similar. It can be your logo or mascot, whichever you prefer.

3. Social Signature

 Aside from including your social media buttons on your websites, it is also a great idea to include them in the signature of your emails. Consider how many emails are exchanged with customers. Each one is an opportunity to get more people to engage with you on the social networks you are active on.

4. Track Your Traffic

Knowing where your website traffic is coming from can give you greater insight that is helpful for your marketing strategy. For instance, if you know that the majority of your visitors are coming through Facebook, then you will know to focus more attention on engaging with people there.

5. Be an Active Listener

To continue building up your audience through social media, you need to set up “listening posts” in order to stay current on what is trending and what your target following is talking about. This can be done with the help of free online tools like Boardreader, Alerts Grader and Twitter Search.

6. Get LinkedIn

Your company needs to set up a profile on LinkedIn. You can post updates and keep your business information current. You can join groups that are in line with your business and start networking.

7. Set Up a Company Blog

Having a blog as a part of your website is an excellent way for your business to share information with site visitors. You can write about industry news, new products and reviews. Include videos and photos to add interest.

8. Create an Exciting Work Environment

Take a cue from companies like Zappos and Amazon, which have embraced a livelier company culture. Customers want to know that they are doing business with a company that has enthusiastic employees. Make sure you are creating an environment that fosters that kind of culture so that you have both happy employees and happy customers.

9. Get Your Staff Involved

Pass on all that you learn about the do’s and don’ts of social media to your staff members and encourage them to take part in creating a more social business. Have them contribute to the company blog or update the Facebook status. Some of your best ideas may come from your staff so don’t overlook them as a resource.

10. Time It Right

When posting, it is important to know the best time of day to post so that you know you are getting the best response. Do some research to know what the best time is for your posts. Your target audience may be at work from 9-5 so you might not see a lot of engagement during those hours. Find the right time and you will see more interaction from followers.

Is your business ready to get social? What questions would you ask a social media expert to help get you started? Share with us!

How Many SEO Consultants Actually Know What They're Talking About?

As an industry, SEO has struggled with setting standards of quality from day one. Even with countless professional SEOs doing best-in-class work, the industry as a whole is constantly battling the bad rap of being tactless, unethical, and sometimes even "dead."

Black-hat or black cat?

At SEOmoz, we find ourselves pleasantly surprised day after day by the array of high-quality SEOs that make our industry such a wonderful place to be. Unfortunately, the time finally came where we had to ask ourselves the nagging questions looming over our industry: where was all this negative noise coming from? Had we been missing a widely accepted fact in the SEO world? And, most importantly, was the current state of SEO really as awful as some were making it seem?

There was only one way to find out.

Inspired by a post highlighting the "sad state" of today's SEO consultants, we decided to conduct a survey of our own to determine the true, calculated quality of SEOs in 2012. Similar to the Webmaster World member whose less-than-awesome exchange with various SEO consultants sparked this hot debate, we chose to reach out to real, third-party SEO companies for advice on how to improve rankings to collect our data. But we wanted to do it bigger.

Enter: The PEPS Project

To collect data in the most neutral way possible, we knew we wouldn’t be able to use our own name for fear of skewing responses (i.e. if SEOmoz emailed you, asking for beginner-level SEO advice, would you believe us? No? That's ok, we probably wouldn't, either.). We decided to partner with the charitable organization and long-time friend of SEOmoz, Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS), to help us out. PEPS is a great organization that we'd been wanting to get some SEO help for for quite some time. In return for allowing us to go "undercover" as a PEPS employee when reaching out to SEO consultants for advice, SEOmoz would foot the bill for a complete site audit for PEPS. The consulting agency to conduct the site audit would be the best SEO selected from our study, and everyone involved would win!

The project design

After setting a Moz employee up with a PEPS account, it was time to get to work. We compiled a list of general, broad questions that a site owner new to SEO might ask in reaching out for SEO advice, all the while making sure that the questions would be solid indicators of an agency’s level of ethical or unethical SEO knowledge. Once we selected the top few benchmarks that should be hit, we pulled together an email including these four questions:

1. Do you see any quick areas for improvement? Are we doing anything really wrong or dangerous?
2. We've been hearing a lot of talk about the "Panda"and "Penguin" penalties from Google. Can you explain what these are? Are we at risk for these penalties? How can we tell if we've been hit?
3. We have the opportunity to buy some domains that relate to our services, like ParentSupport.com. We were thinking of building a second version of our site on a .com site that is more related to our services. Is it better to have a.com or a .org domain? How can we leverage buying other domains that have to do with our services to help get more SEO traffic?
4. We get lots of emails from people wanting to trade or exchange links with us. Should we be saying yes? Will this help with SEO?

Source:- Seomoz.com