SEO

When I was a tot, I learned my ABCs with pictures and words printed on sliced-up trees. I also watched "Sesame Street." These days, many kids are learning to spell with tablet computers. What will Google teach them?

Rolled out two years ago this week, Google Instant shows suggested queries as you type. It was billed as a time saver, shaving two to five seconds off each search.

Google figured that Instant would improve searches because it takes people 300 milliseconds between each keystroke, but only 30 milliseconds to glace at suggested results. Before Instant, it took people more than nine seconds on average to enter a term, according to the search engine.

Some love the feature, some hate it. Some claim their reputation has suffered because of it and have sought redress in court.

But one of the most intriguing things about Google Instant is how it presents a list of queries when a single letter is typed. This autocomplete alphabet, as it's known, changes frequently according to the most popular searches. Here's the latest snapshot of the alphabet, in halves: … Read more

There has been a huge maelstrom about Google integrating Google+ into its search links. And it all misses the point.

Twitter and others are complaining that Google is throwing its massive 65 percent plus market share weight around and quashing smaller competitors. The reason Twitter and others are so threatened is that the pattern of shared links within Google+ provides a decent enough indicator as to what links are interesting. What's important is what's trending, and algorithms can get a sense of that with just a subset of everything that's getting shared on the Web.

The most … Read more

A Google effort to promote its Chrome browser misfired with the appearance of some blog posts that fly in the face of Google's own attempts to discourage low-quality Web content.

The campaign, spotted yesterday by Aaron Wall at SEOBook, is apparent in several blog posts from late December bearing the label, "This post is sponsored by Google Chrome." But there appears to be some backtracking now that the campaign is under scrutiny, and Google itself is disclaiming responsibility while trying to prevent anything similar from happening again.

The theme of the posts is evident in their titles: &… Read more

Jerusalem-based AnyClip has just signed a deal with Warner Bros. Digital Distribution to make thousands of films searchable online.

You know that scene in "Casablanca" when Rick says, "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine"? AnyClip just made "Casablanca" searchable, so you can get to that line of the movie and perfect your new pickup line.

AnyClip has signed a content licensing agreement with Warner Bros. Digital Distribution to create a library of clips from movies like "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of … Read more

The Huffington Post and ABC News easily topped a ranking of the most visible online news sites conducted after Google's recent algorithm changes.

In third place was Fox News, which received a significant boost over the course of a month with 22 first-page appearances on Google for its main Web site, up from 11 in March, according to CNET's analysis of nearly 100,000 search results. By contrast, Huffington Post enjoyed 54 first-page mentions and ABC News a total of 35.

To test how Google's new "Panda" algorithm, coupled with another announcement last week, affected … Read more

Google's sweeping changes to Web site rankings have roiled the Web industry, including the company's announcement last week that its algorithms now incorporate more "user feedback signals."

The reason Google made such a dramatic change to how it ranks Web sites is simple: Search engine optimizers had learned how to game the earlier algorithm to make low-quality writing more visible than quality content. Instead of preparing Web pages designed to benefit readers, SEO-focused content farms were writing for search engines.

To test the changes and provide a rare glimpse into Google's algorithmic workings, CNET compiled … Read more

Google recently updated its algorithm to take down Web sites that use SEO to game search results and up their ranking, but spam still dominates results. Search for something like "how to lose weight" and a flurry of content farms will appear.

Content farms simply hire low-paid freelancers to write articles about every topic in existence, allowing their Web sites to rank high in Google search results. The result? Unqualified, haphazardly written posts that can bury more reputable sources and delay the time it takes to get the answers you're looking for.

In response to these content farms, you can now permanently block Web sites from search results. Make use of this tip (in the video below)--Google is likely noting users' blocks to identify Web sites it should manually lower the ranking of.

… Read more

Spam accounted for 95 percent of all e-mail sent worldwide during the third quarter, according to a report released today.

Panda Security's third-quarter report (PDF) also found that 50 percent of all spam came from 10 countries, with India, Brazil, and Russia as the top three sources. The U.S. came in No. 8, while the U.K. dropped off the list. Much of the spam that invades in-boxes comes from botnets that hijack computers whose owners don't realize their PCs have been infected, the report noted.

Trojans now are responsible for 55 percent of all malware threats, … Read more

Search engine optimization tools help Web site administrators attract visitors through a high ranking on major search engines like Google and Bing. Link-Assistant's SEO SpyGlass Enterprise is a powerful backlink checker that analyzes top-ranked sites to learn what makes them successful; in effect, the program legitimately "spies" on sites to copy their methods and uncover the high-quality links that drive keyword searches to their sites. The program uses that and other data to create a highly focused Web site optimization strategy in 30 minutes or less, claiming to save time over doing it all manually, step-by-step, as … Read more