Search engines have evolved to use hundreds of different indicators on a website to determine what, where, and when a website will be listed in search results.

Google’s Matt Cutts announced recently that the META attribute “Keyword” is not factored into their search engine ranking algorithm at all. This doesn’t come as a shock to SEO professionals who have discounted the META keyword attribute’s value years ago, but rather an acknowledgment that search engines have progressed to the point where any “easy” manual manipulation of a website’s search engine ranking is a distant past.

What about the other Search Engines?

There is evidence that other engines Continue Reading…

Previously, we had posted an announcement about the updates to Google’s search engine; codenamed “Caffeine”.

We’ve uncovered a new tool that we wanted to share with you. It allows you to compare your current Google rankings against your rankings in the Google “Caffeine” Sandbox. (The developmental testing server)

Compare your current rankings vs. the new Caffeine rankings for yourself and tell us about your findings.

Please note: Results fluctuate on a daily basis and the Caffeine development server may change drastically before it’s rolled out.

Google recently announced that they have been secretly working on a new version of the “World’s Most Popular Search Engine”:

Here’s what Google wrote:

“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.”

Continue Reading…

We’ve seen this happen time and time again when we engage with new SEO clients.  They’ve just had their website redesigned by a company unfamiliar with SEO, and launched the new site.  Next thing they know, search engine rankings have dropped or disappeared altogether and traffic has dropped significantly.

The main problems with website redesign arise from changing a website’s structure, file paths, and filenames, or from deleting old pages. If done without proper planning, a website redesign can often result in a traffic drop once you relaunch.

Often we do find it necessary to rename files and change a site’s structure — primarily for search engine optimization purposes, but sometimes to maintain better file organization on the server.

Here are a few issues that can arise… Continue Reading…

As you upgrade your website to improve its demand generation power, it is helpful to know some of the ever changing guidelines that can make your work more effective. We have collected the following Do’s and Don’ts to help Partners avoid common Search Engine Optimization (SEO) mistakes and embed sound technical and human content to increase their website visibility.

You should be aware that these guidelines have a tendency to shift over short periods of time, so make sure you come back occasionally to look for the latest updates. Continue Reading…

A few days ago, I got into a discussion on a forum about meta tags and their benefits for search engine optimization. The original poster had asked about which meta tags were the most important for SEO.

The overwhelming response was, “Meta tags?! Nobody cares about those anymore — don’t waste your time!” For SEO maybe, but ignoring meta tags altogether could mean that you’re missing out on valuable clicks when your site shows up in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Continue Reading…

I see this question come up quite often.

People ask where they should set up their new company blog to maximize their blog’s SEO effectiveness. Answers are always varied and mostly, in my humble opinion, incorrect.

To take full advantage of the search engine optimization benefits of setting up a new company blog, there’s only one answer.

But first, how does a blog help with your search engine optimization efforts in the first place? Continue Reading…