Your 2013 Secret Trick to BEAT the Google Panda REVEALED

April 5, 2013 by Cheryl Waller

Google Panda Updates & One Simple Trick

It has always been important to make sure that you have quality backlinks with proper anchor text, but now the Google Panda updates (started in February 2011) have taken it even further. Google updates have FOREVER changed SEO. In Fact according to Matt Cutts they are not going away. The updates are aimed at lowering the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites" with very little useful content, and rewarding higher-quality sites with near-the-top search results.

The Google Panda algorithm is concerned with quality. It is based on human interaction with websites and looks for similarities among sites that users prefer to use. While most ranking algorithms previously used by Google were aimed at the ranking of individual pages, the Panda slammed entire sections of a website or even entire domains if they were outside certain parameters.

This doesn't mean that the Panda was only concerned with 'junk' sites. The Panda also penalized sites that were over-optimized. Essentially the update cleared out the top and bottom of the best and worst to make for a more level playing field. Sites that were over-optimized and had a less-than-informative website were hit hard. Junk sites specifically designed for delivery of advertising were also penalized harshly.

The 'Trick' to beating the Panda updates is simply to provide high quality content, on a navigable website, and make sure a human would actually stay on your site.

1. Good HIGH-Quality Content

If you don't have good high quality website content, then you are not going to do well in the search engine rankings. Your conent must be unique and bring something new to the table. If the search engine has seen 1,000 other sites like yours with the same content... forget it.

2. Solid Navigation

If a search engine cannot find its way around your website, then chances are that humans would have trouble too. Your site must be designed with both humans and search engine robots in mind. Make it easy to navigate, find information quickly, and drop the 25 fancy widgets.

3. Keep it Easy on the Eyes

You have probably seen enough websites yourself to know what websites make you want to puke. Simply put, dont be 'that' guy.

By concentrating on delivering high quality content, good navigation, and a pleasant website experience, you 'trick' the Panda into thinking you have a good high-quality site.... or do you? Panda wonders....

Cheryl Waller | Strategic Internet Marketing Consultant
Cheryl Waller is an experienced SEO, SEM and SMM consultant. She has authored several Internet and direct marketing manuals for small businesses and real estate agents around the world. She is a contributing author to several websites and offers advice on dominating Google search results.

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Filed Under: ActiveRain Blogs, Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking

3 Must-Have Traits of a Content Marketing Leader

April 5, 2013 by Ritika Puri Leave a Comment

From Ritika Puri:

It takes a unique set of skills to lead your team in content marketing. Here are the three must-have character traits of a strong leader.

Filed Under: Facebook, Idea Hub, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking

Copyright Holders Ask Google To Take Down Their Own Takedown Notices

April 5, 2013 by John Biggs Leave a Comment

In a bit of copyright irony, companies like NBC Universal and Lionsgate have started targeting Google and the DMCA request clearinghouse ChillingEffects.org in their robotically-generated takedown orders simply because the site contains URLs that have been previously taken down. It is, in short, takedowns all the way down.

DMCA takedown notices are the quickest and easiest way for copyright holders to have things taken off of the Internet. While some takedown notices result in literal censorship, the ability to pull content off of Google is a boon for copyright holders. However, as each notice is processed, Google posts the request along with pertinent statistics and links. This, as TorrentFreak notes, has essentially created a search engine for piracy where pirate websites can be sussed out with a few keystrokes.

The takedown notices seem to automatically generated so I doubt the rightsholders even know what they’re asking let alone the irony of their requests. The ChillingEffects links are still accessible via Google because, as we well know, they only mention the takedown notices themselves and don’t host the content.

As this process becomes more and more automated, it becomes a stranger and stranger world. Given that many of these systems are robots, it’s a race of robot vs. robot for the takedowns and, sometimes, the robots turn on each other. We, at the very least, live in interesting times.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Blogging, dmca, Facebook, Google, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

How Facebook Can Make Money Off Facebook Home

April 5, 2013 by Seth Fiegerman Leave a Comment

Facebook took a big step on Thursday towards increasing its presence on mobile with the announcement of Facebook Home — a new home screen and app launcher for Android — and the release of the first-ever Facebook phone manufactured by HTC

Mark Zuckerberg, the company's CEO and co-founder, spent most of his time discussing his vision for reorienting the smartphone user experience around people rather than apps, but as with most Facebook events, he stayed vague on one big point: how Facebook plans to make money off these new products.

"There are no ads in this yet," Zuckerberg said of Facebook Home during a Q&A with reporters after the launch event. "I'm sure at some point there will be." Read more...

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Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, business, Facebook, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking

HubSpot Celebrates Women in Tech with Lean In Breakfast and Three Awards

April 5, 2013 by Katie Burke Leave a Comment

Cambridge, MA: Today, inbound marketing software company, HubSpot Inc., celebrated female employees who have recently been recognized for outstanding work and promise in the inbound marketing industry by attending Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In book tour breakfast in Boston. Among the 90+ women from HubSpot who attended the event, as well as the executive team, was Ellie Mirman, recognized on SLMA’s 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management, Anum Hussain, a 2013 B2B Marketing Rising Star, and Laura Fitton, co-author of Twitter for Dummies and one of Forbes’ Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers. A large group of HubSpot employees attended the event, where Sandberg discussed her new book “Lean In,” to celebrate and support women pursuing leadership roles in the workplace.

Fitton, who oversees HubSpot’s Influencer Relations, says, “HubSpot is home to so many talented, innovative women who we can’t wait to watch over the next few years. We are thrilled to have had the opportunity for women at HubSpot to hear Sheryl speak on breaking down obstacles for women to become leaders.” HubSpot CTO and co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, says, “HubSpot has always employed brilliant women who are innovators in marketing and technology. We thank Sheryl Sandberg for teaching us how HubSpot, and business leaders everywhere, can build better companies as platforms for women to excel. We look forward to applying the kinds of innovative practices that have helped us revolutionize marketing to recruit, retain, cultivate and promote women in the workplace.”

*Photo features (left to right) Hannah Fleishman & Anum Hussain of HubSpot, Debi Kleiman of MITX, and Laura Fitton of HubSpot

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Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking

What The Facebook Phone Almost Was

April 5, 2013 by Neha Prakash Leave a Comment

Facebook announced their "phone" Thursday and it turns out the much-anticipated product was more of a psuedo-operating system called "Home."

Mark Zuckerberg presented to the world the result of years of prototypes and trial periods (we assume). So, what was on the drafting table pre-Home?

Dartanion London has the scoop — it's the first "leaked" promo of what he says was originally called the "FacePhone" or the "PhoneBook." Features of this parody phone included filtered messages to only show sponsored texts, a constantly changing keypad so you were never sure of how to dial, and absolutely free calling (only if the other person also had a Facebook phone). Read more...

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Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, Facebook Phone, Parodies, search engine optimization, SEO, Share as Post, Social Networking, viral videos

Facebook Home and Other News You Need to Know

April 5, 2013 by Stan Schroeder Leave a Comment

Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world.

Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories. In case you missed it yesterday, Facebook announced a brand new application called Home. Apple’s music streaming service is getting closer. According to CNET, the company is in talks with record companies for a sweeter deal than the one they currently get with Pandora. And if you wondering just how popular is Game of Thrones, we've got an answer: Based on the Facebook and Twitter numbers, the show boasts nearly 5.5. million recorded fans. Read more...

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Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: apple, Blogging, Facebook, features, first to know series, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, tech

Couldn’t Make It To SXSW? Now You Can Learn About Google Glass And The Mirror API On YouTube

April 5, 2013 by Chris Velazco Leave a Comment

I’d wager that most of you reading this didn’t make it out to Austin for SXSW, and even fewer of you still have ever gotten some hands-on time with Google’s ambitious Glass project. On the off chance that you’ve been spending these past few weeks agonizing over all the juicy Glass tidbits you missed out on by not being there, you can rest easy — Google has posted the full video of its 50 minute Glass session on YouTube.

The talk — titled “Building New Experiences with Glass” featured Senior Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan giving attendees (and now you) a brief rundown on what it’s actually like using Google Glass. We’ve seen these sorts of hands-on impressions in the past, but Jordan’s session managed to give attendees a clearer idea of what the Glass interface actually looks like while he’s rubbing away at the side-mounted trackpad or checking out updates from his Google+ pals.

More importantly, Jordan’s session provided those on-site developers a glimpse at what it actually takes to build services for the head-mounted display. In it, he made multiple references to how simple the development process actually was (it’s “not complex,” as he puts it), but there’s more than enough meat here to give potential Glass developers a taste of what they’re in for. In the end though, Jordan was bullish on what Glass means for how we as users interact with our gadgetry — he didn’t go as far as saying traditional touchscreens were “emasculating” like a certain other Google employee, but he pointed out that current modes of interaction tend to separate us from the events and experiences of our lives.

“It feels like tech is often getting in the way more than it needs to,” Jordan remarked. “And that’s what we’re addressing with Project Glass — it’s so that you can still have access to the technology you love, but it doesn’t take you out of the moment.”

Jordan and his employers at Google may think we’ll love Glass, but the real jury has yet to weigh in. While Google is prepping Glass for a widespread consumer release at the end of this year, it has also reached out to thousands of would-be Glass Explorers about claiming their own $1,500 tester units. So far the search giant has been exceedingly careful about who has gotten to play with its vision of the future, but that’s all about to change in short order.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, Gadgets, Google, google glass, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, sxsw, TC

AWS Drops Prices For Windows On-Demand EC2 Instances Up To 26% As Competition Intensifies

April 4, 2013 by Alex Williams Leave a Comment

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is dropping the price of Windows On-Demand EC2 instances up to 26 percent, which is another clear sign of the price wars in the cloud computing market. The news follows Google’s announcement earlier today that it is dropping instance prices by 4 percent.

AWS says the drop in price continues its tradition of exploring ways to reduce its costs:

This reduction applies to the Standard (m1), Second-Generation Standard (m3), High-Memory (m2), and High-CPU (c1) instance families. All prices are effective from April 1, 2013. The size of the reduction varies by instance family and region. You can visit the AWS Windows page for more information about Windows pricing on AWS.

AWS has extended its support for AWS in the last month with support for SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups, a beta of the AWS Diagnostics for Microsoft Windows Server, and new drivers for our virtual instances that improve performance and increase the supported number of volumes.

Earlier today, Google opened Compute Engine to developers who subscribe to Google’s $400 per month Gold Support package. The package includes 24/7 phone support. Users can access Compute Engine without the need to talk to sales or an invitation.

Google and Microsoft have consistently been dropping prices over the past several months. In November, Google dropped storage prices by 20 percent.

For AWS, the price drops are consistent with its strategy. AWS believes it can use its scale, purchasing power and deeper efficiencies in the management of its infrastructure to continue dropping prices.

The market is diversifying and AWS sees a need to extend its dominance in the market. But with Google and new players in the mix, it’s unclear how the strategy will pan out, as competitors offer a more high-touch type of service.

Filed Under: Google, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Amazon Web Services, AWS, Blogging, enterprise, Facebook, Google, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

Google Says Facebook Home Demonstrates Android’s Openness, Framing Apple As Restrictive

April 4, 2013 by Drew Olanoff Leave a Comment

Google’s statement on Facebook’s introduction of “Home” was short and sweet, but very telling, so let’s dissect it a little bit. As we noted earlier, Facebook went with Android first because of its flexibility. Basically it’s easy to customize.

Other platforms, not so much. Zuckerberg even mentioned that Windows Phone might be a bit easier to work with, calling it out as “somewhere in the middle” of Android and iOS.

Here’s what Google said to us a little while ago:

The Android platform has spurred the development of hundreds of different types of devices. This latest device demonstrates the openness and flexibility that has made Android so popular.

You’ll notice that the first thing that the company says is that there are “hundreds” of different types of devices running its mobile operating system. In the past, that’s been seen as a bad thing, due to fragmentation. Here, Google is clearly positioning this as an advantage, that is has more choices for consumers than say, Apple has.

Secondly, “this latest device,” being the HTC First, which is pre-installed with Facebook Home, demonstrates flexibility. There’s that word again. Clearly, Google is firing a rocket at its competitor Apple, which is notoriously very stiff when it comes to customization. In Apple’s mind, its users don’t know what they want to see until it shows it to them. By letting a company like Facebook take over the first experience users have when they wake up their phone, they are giving away pretty much everything. Again, Google points this out as a competitive advantage.

In an extended version of the statement to VentureBeat, Google made sure to pump up its own products at the same time:

And it’s a win for users who want a customized Facebook experience from Google Play — the heart of the Android ecosystem — along with their favorite Google services like Gmail, Search, and Google Maps.

In this added bit, Google makes sure to bring the attention back to its baked-in Android services, like search, email and maps. Is that Google getting a little bit jealous of all of the fuss over Facebook? Not at all. These companies are competitive in the sense that they’re both after eyeballs, but when it comes to social interactions, they couldn’t be more different. Forget the Google+ argument here; it wasn’t built to be a competitor to Facebook. Google owns search and email for a reason, they’re better products than what others offer.

Both Facebook and Google are the winners here. Facebook doesn’t have to build its own phone or operating system, and Google gets to keep pointing out the fact that customization is something that consumers want, and Apple doesn’t deliver on. The two companies are using each other, and as MG Siegler pointed out, are strange bedfellows.

Yes, Facebook has partnered with Apple to bring users a way to update a status message quicker, but it’s clear after seeing Facebook Home today, that it’s simply not enough interaction for the social network. For those who spend a good bit of time using Facebook on their mobile device, they will soon tire of having to wake up their phone, find the Facebook app, open it and read their notifications. Once they see a friend or colleague with the HTC First or another Android device with Facebook Home installed, they will wonder why they can’t do the same thing on their iPhone.

Other companies like Facebook are going to start getting interested in this approach as well, as far as introducing customized launchers for their user base. Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp was at the Home event today, don’t you think he might go back to New York City and talk to his team about what a Tumblr-themed version of Android would look and act like? Of course he is. What about Dropbox’s Drew Houston, who was also at the event? Could filesharing become a driving force of your mobile experience? It depends on what type of user you are.

Don’t get me wrong, Apple isn’t in the corner crying right now, but some folks at the company have to be looking at today’s news and starting to think of ways to win back developers who want to follow Facebook’s lead and might start focusing on Android first.

Facebook Home has finally made the Android/Open vs. iOS/Closed a mainstream issue.

[Photo credit: Flickr]