Danny Sullivan says, “Google deliberately blacklisted competing shopping search sites, despite the company’s past claims that it doesn’t target competitors this way, according to new details of the US Federal Trade Commission investigation into Google on anti-trust charges, found by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ obtained a 160 page FTC staff report from the investigation, finding that the FTC should move ahead with an anti-trust lawsuit on several fronts. Our own summary of the WSJ story can be found on our sister-site, Search Engine Land. FTC commissioners ultimately chose to... [...]

Brian Clark says, “Google rankings are dynamic and ever-changing, especially when searches are made by different people in different locations. For example, a search for “car insurance” yields five out of 10 localized results for local directories like Yelp, local car insurance agents, and then national companies. SEO is no longer about one type of rating. Google now serves different results based on query themes, the location of the user, personalization, devices used, and types of content available. Has Google leveled the playing field, or is it making it harder to compete? In this... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “Important decisions over budgets are made based on SEO forecasts, but it seems that these aren’t always accurate.  Indeed, just one in four SEOs say that their forecasting is accurate, according to a new study from Linkdex. SEO forecasting is used to give clients and decision makers an idea of the results they can expect, and budgets and resources are often allocated based on this information. Forecasting can help push decisions from clients, as Bill Hunt points out”. SEOs: much of our forecasting is incorrect ‘Econsultancy’ Blog  [...]

Michael Wilkins says, “SEO is still a part of the work that I do and I don’t believe that it is dead. However, I can’t help but find that SEO is frustrating, which is probably why so many attempts on its life are made. Here are some of the main reasons why I find it’s such a difficult area to deal with”. SEO is not dead, but it’s definitely frustrating ‘Econsultancy’ Blog  [...]

Ant Aladdin proves SEO doesn’t have to be tedious #ad If you think of SEO as a boring, tedious and expensive process (you probably have the experience to prove it), then you may want to consider what Aladdin can do for you. This new software (just released on Tuesday) can simplify, and even automate, a lot of your SEO work. It uses a drag and drop interface that anyone, even a beginner, can quickly get comfortable with. Users of Aladdin have found that it speeds up their SEO work remarkably. One reports, “90+ Page 1 Rankings in less than 5 minutes”, for example. Aladdin is a tool... [...]

Dr. Peter J. meyers says, “Last year, Google expanded the Knowledge Graph to use data extracted (*cough* scraped) from the index to create answer boxes. Back in October, I wrote about a failed experiment. One of my posts, an odd dive into Google’s revenue, was being answer-fied for the query “How much does Google make?””. How We Fixed the Internet (Ok, an Answer Box) MOZ Blog  [...]

David Kirkpatrick says, “When a management change at a global B2B chemical supply company led to neglecting website performance metrics and overall search engine optimization strategies, the result was a website that underperformed and had glaring SEO issues once those numbers were finally reviewed. This case study covers the systematic campaign that increased organic website traffic-based revenue 25% and organic traffic 33% as well as the ongoing plans the team has in place to continue improving SEO on the website”. Search Engine Optimization: Website overhaul increases revenue tracked to... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “Lots of companies have different international domains serving similar content and pages, but are they working against each other?  Here, I’ll show examples from three companies, showing how their international domains are actually competing for the same search terms, as well as how to solve this problem. 888.com 888 has several international sites, and in this case the www.888.com is competing with the uk.888.com and au.888.com sites for the term ‘online Texas Holdem’. From the chart below, we can see the the Australian site has had the better rankings... [...]

He calls himself Oz and he is the creator of a many tools to assist online marketers. On March 10 he released his latest: Aladdin. It makes it possible, he says, for even the newest beginner to rank on Page 1 of Google. It is an SEO tool, but one that has been simplified enough that even we who are non-technical can use it and get good results. All you have to do is: Step 1: Drag Step 2: Drop Step 3: Rank Aladdin is desktop software, running on Windows or Mac. It lets you build backlinks to your web pages (such as WordPress posts); hundreds of backlinks is no exaggeration. For the first time ever,... [...]

Baer says, “Search engine optimization (SEO) audits have the unfortunate reputation of being time-consuming and tedious. However, most people who have owned a website for very long know their importance. Since 93% of online experiences start with search engines (SEJ), you need regular audits to keep your site relevant and ranking well. Even if you have consultants take care of your SEO, it’s still a good idea to understand these seven steps. SEO is a constantly changing landscape. The search engines keep forcing companies to reevaluate their SEO strategies. The good news is, SEO audits... [...]