Today, Google announced social search features with a mouthful of a name: Search Plus Your World.

We’ve been hearing rumblings around the Valley that Google was working on big new features to integrate Google+ with search results and this has been an obvious evolution for the search engine ever since they released their new social network.

This new set of features will include posts, videos, links, photos and more from your friends on Google+. It is not yet rolled out to everyone but will be made available to those signed into Google+ in the United States over the next few days.

Impact on SEO

This is part of Google’s effort to dramatically change how search works, placing an increasing importance on signals from its own social network, Google+. With 50 million users recently attained, this is a not insignificant source of data and their growth curve has been insane.

Speculation in the SEO community as well as in back channels all point to Google+ being a big part of Google’s plans for affecting how SEO works. The impact on SEO through Facebook and Twitter has already been felt quite strongly over the last two years and Google has obviously been paying attention.

Here’s what I think will be relevant for startups and marketers over the next twelve months:

Having More Pluses Will Increase Search Rankings

Take a look at almost any blog post with Plus, Facebook and Twitter buttons. Twitter and Facebook, by far, will have far more activity than the Google+ buttons. That overall inbalance probably won’t change in the next year although we will see a change in the ratio as Google+ begins to narrow the gap.

Now is the time to start building your audience on Google+ (this is our homework assignment as well), learn how the network works and begin to form meaningful connections with people who share your interests.

Links Will Still Be Important but Slightly Less So

Links, for the last decade, have dominated the collective mindshare of SEO community as the primary way to influence search rankings in your favor. We’re going to see an increased weight being placed on social signals, with perhaps slight preference towards Google+ numbers. From a search engine’s perspective, the rich data set to be found in the social graphs provided by Facebook and Google+ are irresistible indicators of quality and relevance.

What this means is that links will have a slightly less overall impact on your search performance than before. It’s still, in my opinion, going to be the primary signal for quality and relevance if only because they have a more permanent feel than most social signals, but the balance is shifting slightly.

My best recommendation here is to continue doing what you’re doing with link building, but to also ensure that your content is well optimized for distribution on Facebook, Twitter, and now, Google+.

Search Patterns Will Start to Change

Even with today’s release and Google+’s 50 million users, I don’t think Google has enough social content through their own network to significantly affect search patterns across all types of queries, but certain categories of queries may start to see changes. If you look at the types of posts that gain the most popularity on social networks, it’s those that have the most opportunity for interaction: photos, videos, links, longer posts.

These sorts of posts, from a purely search monetization standpoint, fit in well with travel and some ecommerce related queries. As this change begins to take hold, the way people search for travel destinations and products online could change to make more use of their own network’s recommendations.

Social signals (and the people behind them) are Viewed as More Trustworthy

At the current time, it is much easier to game the link graph (people have been practicing for the last ten years and there has been financial incentive) than it has been to game the social graph. For this reason, even though the overall weight and permanence on individual posts may still have less value when compared with a link, the people behind the social shares have their entire reputation and persona to back them up. This is the closest thing we will have to domain authority in the old SEO world but it’s long term impact is far more significant.

At the end of the day, spammers will figure out relatively effective ways of gaming the social graph at large scale, but we’re still in virgin territory and Google has many more options for determining authenticity with this data set than they ever did with links.

The Quality and Regularity of Your Content Will Still Matter Most

As a startup ourselves, we care most about what we can learn from this to better reach our audience and provide useful content to them. It’s clear on Twitter and Facebook that posting high quality, unique content regularly and often is the single best strategy for achieving that goal. That hasn’t changed, on the contrary it is more true now than ever before.

About the Author:
Ray Grieselhuber is CEO of GinzaMetrics, an enterprise level SEO platform based in Mountain View, CA. GinzaMetrics is a 2010 Y-combinator graduate company and backed by several individual investors as well as 500 Startups and Venture51.

Good or bad, it makes Google+ even more relevant to search visibility

Google just announced some new elements it is bringing to Google Search: personal results, profiles in search, and people and pages. They’re billing the changes collectively as “Search, Plus Your World”.

Now, Google has been doing personalized search to some extent for quite a while. Likewise, profiles have appeared in search results for quite some time. The new features are different in that the personal results will let users find info specifically for them. This may include Google+ photos and posts of their own and things that have been shared with them. Profiles will appear in both autocomplete and results. The “people and pages” feature comes in to enable users to find people profiles and Google+ pages related to topic areas of interest, and make it easy for users to follow these people.

“Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of webpages, images, videos, news and much more,” says Google Fellow Amit Singhal. “But clearly, that isn’t enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to… all from one search box.”

“As a child, my favorite fruit was Chikoo, which is exceptionally sweet and tasty,” says Singhal, sharing an example of where the new features may prove useful. “A few years back when getting a family dog, we decided to name our sweet little puppy after my favorite fruit. Over the years we have privately shared many pictures of Chikoo (our dog) with our family. To me, the query [chikoo] means two very sweet and different things, and today’s improvements give me the magical experience of finding both the Chikoos I love, right in the results page.”

Google+ Clearly Now More Important To Search

In terms of Profiles appearing in search, Google is demonstrating why it can pay off in search visibility to be active on Google+ and develop a substantial following. Before it was clear that this was beneficial, but now, you can see directly where this will help you. Not only will Google show people you are friends with, but it will show people it thinks you would be interested in.

Google says it will show autocomplete predictions for “various prominent people from Google+, such as high-quality authors from our authorship pilot program”.

Clearly, this is also another reason to use authorship markup.

People can click on these results and easily add the person to their circles on Google+.

It doesn’t look like brand pages will be showing up as autocomplete predictions. When asked about this, a Google spokesperson told WebProNews, “For profiles in search, you will see an autocomplete prediction for people who have Google+ profiles. These are people you’re connected to or popular people related to the query. For Google+ Pages, there’s Direct Connect (launched back in Nov).”

More on Direct Connect here.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter: @CCrum237 | StumbleUpon: Crum |
Google: +Chris Crum

Senators Call For FTC Antitrust Probe of Google, FairSearch responds

Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee have put together a letter calling for an FTC investigation of Google, with an emphasis on the company’s search results.

Note that the letter refers to Bing as “a partnership of Microsoft and Yahoo”. And that this is the only competition Google has. I’m not sure this is an accurate portrayal of the search industry. Bing is not a partnership of Microsoft and Yahoo. It’s Microsoft’s search engine. They are separate. Sure, they do have a partnership, and Bing powers the back-end of Yahoo, but they are still two different search engines. Granted, they are sharing an advertising platform now. Furthermore, there are other search engines out there, though their market share isn’t nearly as great.

Newer kinds of search engines have popped up in recent memory. Blekko and DuckDuckGo spring immediately to mind. Just because people aren’t using them as much as Google, doesn’t mean they aren’t free to compete. They aren’t being used nearly as much as Bing either. Bing has proven that marketing a search engine and making strategic partnerships can go a long way in gaining market share in the search industry.

The reality of the Internet and the search industry is much broader than competition among search engines. The fact is that people are obtaining information in a lot more ways now. They’re relying on search less for some of that. They’re turning to social media and different apps. A lot of iPhone users may be turning to Siri now. That’s just an example. Smartphones and tablets have opened up the world to a whole new world of apps for consuming information online. That itself could be just as big of an obstacle for Bing as anything.

For that matter, it could be a benefit for Bing if they play their cards right. If people have to rely on the traditional search engine less for some types of information consumption, perhaps there are opportunities for Microsoft to innovate more in the app world. I do believe the direction they’re going with Xbox and Kinect can have some pretty big ramifications. I wonder what a Bing-infused Xbox mobile device could accomplish for their share of the search market. Getting Xbox Live features on mobile devices is a start, but what about something more like what Sony is doing with the Playstation Vita, only Xbox style, taking advantage of the new Xbox platform.

A representative for the FairSearch Coalition sent us these comments on the letter from Rick Rule, head of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division from 1985-1989, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, and outside counsel to Microsoft:

Senator Lee is right to call for careful scrutiny of Google, given the numerous allegations of antitrust violations by the company. The antitrust laws of this country prohibit companies like Google that dominate important parts of our economy from using their market power to destroy competition and to deny consumers of choice. Decisions from conservative courts make clear that the antitrust laws apply just as much to the new economy as to the old. If a company like Google is allowed to flout the rule of law, then free-market competition will suffer.

Senator Lee’s letter to the FTC shows that the Senator understands that promoting sound antitrust law enforcement is an important bulwark against the inevitable calls for regulation. Senator Lee’s letter is in line with the views of conservative judges and free-market heroes, like Judge Bork and Judge Posner.

I too am a conservative who believes in the supremacy of free markets. I worked for President Reagan as the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division. We understood then, as Senator Lee understands today, that in order for free-market competition to work, consumers and producers must be able to respond to the market’s “invisible hand” free from artificial restraints imposed by government, by cartels, or by monopolists like Google. The troubling allegations that Google uses its market power to impose such restraints are too numerous to ignore. As Senator Lee’s letter demonstrates, conservative principles demand that Google be held accountable to the rule of law.

They also sent us these comments from Mark Corallo, former Press Secretary and then Public Affairs Director for the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft (2002-2005). He’s currently a spokesman for FairSearch:

Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Lee (R-UT) sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz requesting that the FTC conduct an investigation into Google’s business practices. They should be applauded. The rule of law is non-partisan. And that is all they are requesting of the FTC – make sure that Google is following the law.

Considering the grilling they gave Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Senate hearing back in September, the news is not that these two Senators have concerns relating to Google’s leveraging its market dominance in anti-competitive and potentially illegal ways. The news is that the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Antitrust Subcommittee put it in writing and asked for action. When two senators not only agree on an issue but are willing to do something about it, the seismic tremors can be felt from the halls of the FTC right on up to Google’s executive suites. And that’s nothing compared to the shockwave that Google’s multimillion dollar lobbying team is feeling from all sides – after all, they’re paid to cut off these types of legitimate inquiries.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter: @CCrum237 | StumbleUpon: Crum |
Google: +Chris Crum

Google really wants to know. So do we. Tell us.

Google uses Google+ probably more than anyone else out there (except for maybe Robert Scoble), and regardless of whether or not you have added it to your daily social networking routine, it continues to provide a great channel for getting to know Google better.

What should Google be doing in 2012 to make your job easier? Comment here.

That doesn’t just go for helping your search rankings (which it can), but it provides a direct line of communication with many, many Googlers. It’s a great place to get advice from Google, and to share feedback. And it’s not just empty feedback. They’re actively participating in meaningful conversations with users, and have shown that they are taking ideas into consideration (for example, see recent Gmail integration).

This week, Google Webmaster Trends analyst John Mueller posted the following in a Google+ update:

“Google has tried a lot of new things this year when it comes to webmaster support — such as the hangouts in a variety of languages. Which parts do you all think we should work on next year? How can we make it easier for you all to make awesome websites, which are easily findable in web-search?”

“More hangouts? videos? more documentation? more detailed examples?”

This seems like a good opportunity to not only to raise this question ourselves with our readers, but to spread the question further, because you can actually participate in this conversation and possibly have an impact on future Google offerings, which can in turn benefit your site in the long run, and after a crazy year of algorithm changes, I’m sure many of you are looking for any leg up possible.

Google has already been hosting a slew of webmaster hangouts on Google+, and if you haven’t been taking advantage of this, why not? You are getting free access to some advice right from the horse’s mouth.

If you read WebProNews regularly, you should also know that Google puts out a lot of webmaster videos, generally starring Matt Cutts. We cover them fairly frequently, because they’re generally full of helpful knowledge for webmasters. Even when they contain things you already knew, sometimes it helps to be reminded of certain things, or Cutts might present the topic in a slightly different light than you looked at it before. It’s a good idea to watch these videos.

Here are some of the responses Mueller has received to his question so far:

Thomas Morffew: More people like you John, that are real faces, and available to help.

Sandip Dedhia: I agree with +Thomas Morffew, more Googlers who are open to speak about issues which webmasters are facing. In post panda era most of the replies on webmaster forum are so generic that it is hard to make out what is the exact cause of penalty or search traffic drop.

I would suggest some case studies around those websites who managed to recover from different penalties, like the reasons of penalty and steps they took to recover from that penalty.

Ramon Somoza: Certainly some assistance for multilingual sites would a great help.

Lincoln Jaeger: There could be more direct interaction going on through the webmasters console, with regards to flagging up issues, for example.

Bret Sutherland: When will Google shopping/product search get staff who are open and responsive?

Do you agree with any of these commenters? Have other ideas?

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter: @CCrum237 | StumbleUpon: Crum |
Google: +Chris Crum

It’s been an extremely busy year for the good folks at Google, not only did they roll out the game-changing Panda Updates, but now they have increased the stakes by implementing Google Fresh. This recent algorithm update is based on the Caffeine architecture introduced by Google a year ago and supposedly makes Google’s listings much fresher.

On the Official Google Blog where this new Update was announced, Amit Singhal states:

“We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.”

However, in an update, Singhal explains this measurement of 35% only applies to where at least one result was affected by the changes. In reality, this update only “noticeably” impacts 6 to 10% of searches.

“Update 11/7/11: To clarify, when we say this algorithm impacted 35% of searches, we mean at least one result on the page was affected, as opposed to when we’ve said noticeably impacted in the past, which means changes that are significant enough that an average user would notice. Using that same scale, this change noticeably impacts 6 – 10% of searches, depending on the language and domain you’re searching on.”

Regardless, Google Fresh will be influencing what sites/pages get listed in the top spots in Google. Already, these fresher listings are popping up for keyword searches where products or services are constantly changing or evolving such as in consumer electronics.

How Should Webmasters React to Google Fresh?

For the average webmaster or business site owner, this Update will probably mean they will have to examine how often their content is updated. Adding new fresh content has definitely become more important to your site and to your overall marketing strategy.

However, for the small business owner with limited resources, constantly adding new content is not really feasible. These small sites won’t be able to compete with major websites which have hundreds of writers or content contributors. Keeping up will simply be too costly or too time consuming for many small business site owners.

Create Blogs and Forums

Hiring someone or outsourcing your content creation is one option, but in many cases this content is not of the highest quality, which sort of defeats the whole intention. Many SEO experts are already suggesting one way to keep offering up fresh quality content is to run a blog and/or a forum on your site.

Blogs are excellent sources of fresh content and with their RSS feeds broadcasting your news means it is fast and immediate. Blogs are also very search engine friendly so tagging and indexing your content is already built-in and ready to go. They also create a Timestamp with your content so that it can be easily dated and assessed by the search engines.

Having a membership forum or site, where members contribute fresh content, is another viable option for web owners. Appointing moderators to oversee this content is probably a good idea to ensure quality standards and to cut down on spam.

Create Active Online Communities

Along those same lines, another good idea is to create an active online community around your blog, site or any one of the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or perhaps Google+. Announcing fresh content to these communities, especially if they are large and active, will get your content noticed by Google.

These social networks are designed to quickly pass fresh news or information along to all concerned and can be a great way to get your message out quickly and easily. Google+ has now opened up their service to accept brands, so you can have an account for your site or business.

Create a Current Sitemap

Any webmaster, no matter how small their site, can create a simple XML Sitemap of their site and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. Make sure when you create any new content or pages, the new URLs are placed on your sitemap. This can be done manually or you can set up a server-side application or program which does this automatically. If you want help creating a sitemap try here:

Google Sitemaps Explained.

Do Press Releases

With the introduction of Google Fresh, having your site or business regularly do press releases is a given. These releases are immediately picked up by Google and indexed. These releases can also be very SEO friendly so you can optimize them for your site’s targeted keywords. Places like PRWeb are extremely professional but they are expensive. There are also free press releases sites or services which you can use to get your fresh content out there.

Don’t Forget Google News Sites

You may or may not be aware that Google keeps a list of hand-picked news sites which they regularly crawl and index. These sites have passed Google’s standards and requirements, so they are excellent places to submit your content. Especially if you have a new site, getting Google to index and crawl your content will take some time, so placing your content and links on any of these Google News Sites may be worth the extra effort since it will help speed up the whole indexing process.

List of Google News Sites

Give Google What Google Wants

Finally, don’t forget to keep adding fresh quality content to your site on a regular basis. Regardless of your field, industry or subject matter, there is usually a constant flow of news associated with your topic, so placing a “news” section on your site may also help with Google Fresh. Time and time again, those sites and webmasters who give Google what Google wants, reap the biggest rewards.

About The Author
All views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, Titus Hoskins, who is a full time search engine marketer. He earns his living by ranking high in the search engines for lucrative keywords. His main site offers Free Guides on everything associated with running a business from Corporate Business Gifts to Online Fax Providers to Internet Marketing Tools.

Google announced that it is dropping Google Checkout, and will be transitioning it to its newer product Google Wallet.

Google Wallet was first announced back in May, and was officially launched in September.

You can read more about Google Wallet itself here and here.

Google says transitioning Google Checkout to Google Wallet, it is “building one wallet,” and this is a sensible way to look at it. There’s no real reason to have two payment products. Why not have one really solid feature rich product that can go head to head with PayPal? And certainly, they’ll only continue to add features and gain partners.

Google says it is taking all of the functionality of Google Checkout and merging it with Google Wallet, so users shouldn’t have too much trouble transitioning.

In a post on Google’s Commerce Blog, Google Wallet product manager Ben Lee writes:

For all you busy holiday shoppers, Google Wallet provides a simple and safe way to make online purchases. When you shop with merchants that accept Google Wallet or Google Checkout, just use your Google Wallet username and password to complete your purchase — there’s no need to pull out your credit card or enter your shipping address with every transaction. Starting tomorrow, if you add a Citi MasterCard to the Google Wallet mobile app, it will also be available for use when you shop with Google Wallet online.

…

We’re committed to upgrading our payment solutions for merchants while ensuring they’re able to process payments without interruption during the holidays — so shoppers using Google Wallet will be able to make purchases seamlessly on merchant sites that accept Google Checkout. Early next year, we will work closely with our merchant partners to switch to the Google Wallet logo and share details on new and upcoming features.

“Realistically this is an admission that Checkout hasn’t caught on, otherwise Google could have built offline payments into Checkout rather than launching them as a rebranded Google Wallet,” says Chris Dawson at e-commerce news site Tamebay. “How well Wallet will catch on has yet to be seen. The big question is will you change the Google Checkout logos on your websites to Google Wallet, or will you just press the delete button and allow buyers to use other payment methods?”

Google has a FAQ page specifically for the transition here.

Current Google Checkout users can automatically transition their accounts to Google Wallet the next time they sign in or make an online purchase. Users can access their online purchase history at wallet.google.com/manage.

About the Author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network. Subscribe to SmallBusinessNewz RSS Feeds.

Google Place Search (formerly known as Google Places) rules local search. Just try it. Go to Google and type in “Personal Injury Attorney Your City.” The first seven listings in the “natural search listings” are all Google Places pages. Since 20% of searches are local and the majority of their over $30 billion in revenue comes from small businesses, Google has decided to go hard after local small business advertising.

They started by creating 50 million Google Places pages using aggregated data from online directories and the Yellow Pages. These pages are mobile optimized and attached to Google Maps.

Only about 8% of local businesses have actually claimed their Google Place Search page. Even less have fully optimized their pages. However, this is changing fast. Local businesses are getting hip to the importance of Google Places pages. If you have a local business, the first place potential customers will start to find you is on your Google Places page from their smart phone. You want to make sure you are at the top of the list for your category. Here is how you get a jump on your competition in local search:

1. Stake Your Claim!

Google made the Google Place Search Page now you need to claim yours. You need to claim it because it is possible that the information listed is not correct and the more completely you fill out your page the higher it is ranked in searches. In order to be able to add information to your page you need to claim it first. Google verifies your claim to the page by sending you a postcard by snail mail with a confirmation code or by sending you a message on your phone.

Here is a short article on how to claim your Google Place Search Page.

2. Complete All Information on Your Google Place Search Page

Now that you have claimed your page you want the information to be accurate and complete. Is the address the same? Have you changed phone numbers? You want to add pictures, videos, links to your website, reviews, coupons and as much pertinent information about your business as possible. You want to do this for 2 reasons. First you want your customers to have the most accurate and relevant information about your business. Next you want to completely optimize your Google Place Search Page because optimized pages get ranked first. The better optimized your page the higher it ranks in local search and you want to be first right? Remember, most likely your customers will find your Google Place Search page before they will find your website so you want this to be as attractive and complete as possible.

3. Citations Citations Citations

Citations are listings and references made to you in other local directories. Google aggregates links and reviews from other local directories and places them in your Google Places listing. This also is a factor in determining your rank in local search.

So you want to be lísted in as many other local dírectories as possible to boost your rank in Google Place Search. Also, these directories, such as Yelp, are highly trafficked directories in their own right and people will find your business directly there as well.

Here is a list of 15 local directories where you can get your business listed quickly. Here is a more complete list of 100 local directories.

Súbmitting to each of these directories making sure the information is accurate on each is a very tedious task. Here are a couple of services which will do the submissions for you: Localeze.com and Universal Business Listing.

Another trick is to use YouTube as a citation source. On your YouTube video description make sure you include the same name address and phone number that is on your Google Place Search Page and include local tags in the tag section and Google will pick this up as a local citation.

To get even more citations you can use a free service called Whitespark which will give you an even more in depth list of local directories. If your niche is highly competitive, these extra citations can mean the difference between getting a top listing, or not, in Google local search.

4. Get as Many Reviews as Possible

The number one rule with reviews is that they have to be real. Do not just put a bunch of phony reviews on Google or anywhere else. People are smart, Google is smart. You will get busted. This could end up with you not only losing credibility but having your page penalized. Plus, in some cases it can be illegal.

Some business owners have their customers write hand written reviews right there in the local business. They then upload the scanned version of the review with a link using a service called Posterous. With the customer’s permission you can also just input the review online right then and there. Many customers have smart phones and they can place the review directly online themselves while they are in the establishment.

You can even incentivize your customers to give you a review. Maybe you could give 10% off or a coupon if they place a review online. Be careful, some directories allow this others do not. Check the TOS of the directory you are placing the review on first.

The more reviews you have the higher you are ranked on Google Place Search. Also people look at reviews before making a purchase. This is something that really needs your attention. If you do happen to get a negative review many directories will let you respond. Keep up with this, your business depends on it.

I would love to hear your thoughts and questions on local marketing. Your comments are welcome.

About The Author
Matthew Meyer is the owner of Quickregister.net Marketing Blog and the author of 101+ Ways To Get Backlinks To Your Website. Please visit his blog to pick up a free copy and to learn more about local marketing.

If not, maybe it’s your fault.

A lot of people feel that Google is treating them unfairly when it comes to search rankings. If you are one of these people, let me be perfectly blunt. There’s a good chance this is your fault. You have to play by Google’s rules if you want to have a good chance of being found in Google (and while there are certainly other ways to generate web traffic, Google is obviously a pretty big one). That said, Google will also be the first to tell you that “no algorithm is perfect”. Sometimes they don’t get it right. But are you doing everything in your own power to darn Google’s RESPECT?

Is your site showing up in search results for its targeted keywords? If not, maybe you’re not effectively using these keywords. Google is on to keyword stuffing, and content that is purely written for search. Do not over-saturate your content with keywords you wish to rank for. That said, you can use them as they make sense without compromising the flow of your content. Think titles, image labels (alt tags/title tags/captions), etc. It doesn’t hurt to keep this stuff in mind as you produce content. Just don’t do it in a way that compromises the quality of your page.

Sitelinks

Is Google showing site links for your site when it appears in search results?

Right now, sitelinks are automated, but Google says it may incorproate webmaster input in the future. Frankly, I’d be very surprised if they didn’t. Still, there are best practices you can follow. ” For example, for your site’s internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that’s informative, compact, and avoids repetition,” Google says.

If Google is showing sitelinks for your site, but you don’t like the ones they’ve chosen to display, you can demote URLs to let Google know which ones you don’t think are appropriate. To do this, go to Webmaster Tools, click the site, and go to “sitelinks” under “site configuration”. In the “For this search result” box, complete the URL you don’t want to appear as a sitelink. In the “demote this sitelink URL” box, complete the URL of the one you don’t want to appear. Note that it might take Google a while to reflect this in search results.

The Algorithm Updates

It’s not just about what Google has done in terms of algorithm updates. It’s about what you should be doing. But perhaps you have been hit by recent algorithm tweaks. If Panda, for example, hit your site, then drastic changes may be needed. Google considers your site to be of low quality. Perhaps a site redesign is in order. Google has a whole list of questions you should be asking yourself about your site in terms of quality.

Included on that list is “Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content.” Google said last week that it is testing algorithms that look more at this factor above the fold. Be prepared for that.

Google also just listed ten of its most recent algorithm changes.

Google Is Listening.

If you think you’ve done everything you need to do to make your site Panda-friendly, and Google is still not giving you the RESPECT you think you deserve, then let them know. The company insists that it is listening. Go to this thread and make your voice heard. Last week, they even said they have an Excel sheet of about 500 sites from this thread (at least, I assume this is the thread they were referring to). There is a person responsible for false positives, they said. You may have a legitimate beef, and Google, at least to some extent, recognizes this.

Are You Expecting Google To Be Perfect?

Google isn’t perfect. They know this. In fact, they make this point themselves all the time It’s why they constantly tweak their algorithm. They’re not launching all of these updates just to mess with webmasters. Google makes over 500 changes to its algorithm over a year’s time. They’re trying to improve the quality of their search results. It’s not in Google’s best interest to return results to users that aren’t helpful. They don’t want to send people to Bing, which is marketing its search engine much more heavily than Google. Whether you think the quality of Google’s results have gotten better or not, this is their goal. Google considers Panda a “positive change across all of its known measurements,” by the way. I’m sure some of you disagree.

What Are Your Competitors Doing Right?

Still, you might see lesser competitors ranking above you in search results, and that can be very frustrating. For some reason, Google is giving them more RESPECT. Do you think it’s going to do you any good to just sit back and complain though? It’s your responsibility to analyze your competition. Look at the page that is ranking above yours. Are there some things about that content or page that they are doing better than you? Richer content? A cleaner design? Google has over 200 signals. Keep this in mind. Look for anything positive about that page, and then look at yours and compare and contrast.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter.
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Google+ has been a useful business tool since it was launched. Immediately, people started following relevant people and adding them to Circles. People started engaging in interesting conversations and even video hangouts. There is clearly a lot of potential for business from a platform that lets you to connect to customers like this.

This week, Google launched Google+ Pages, which gives businesses even more tools. For one, they come with Google Apps integration. For two, you now essentially have a Google+ counterpart to your Facebook Page, and Google+ already has over 40 million users.

Need to know how to set up your Google+ page, we run through in easy steps here.

Google+ also has big ramifications for your visibility in Google the search engine, which is a good reason not to ignore it. When you put the Google+ badge on your site, you can tie all of your site’s +1′s to your Pages’s +1 to give Google a stronger signal of how much people actually recommend you as a brand.

You can also tie these to your AdWords account. Google has a blog post up about connecting your page to your AdWords campaigns. Here’s an excerpt:

This week we introduced Google+ Pages, a new way to get closer to your customers online. At that time we announced that you’d be able to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns, so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, ads and search results — get tallied together and appear as a single total. We’re happy to announce that starting today, and rolling out to all advertisers globally over the rest of the week, we’re making this functionality available with a new AdWords feature called Social Extensions.

With Social Extensions, consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, a search result or your page. This means your +1′s will reach not only the 40+ million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day.

Read the whole thing here.

Google also gave a presentation at ad:tech in New York, talking about leveraging Google+ for marketing. The company is aiming to address five key marketing issues with Google+:

1. Fragmented marketing

2. Recommendations that lack staying power

3. Comments, not conversations

4. Impersonal messages

5. Limited insights

“Google has never had a place on Google where you could connect with all of our customers and directly communicate with them,” said Google’s Christian Oestlien. You can do this with Google+ pages. He referenced the ability to connect all of your +1?s and put these recommendations “in a lot more places.”

He also talked up the Circles concept as a way for brands to address different groups of people to deliver the right message to the right people.

In terms of insights, he talked up a recently announced feature of Google+ called ripples, which allows you to track the social activity of posts. This can be very helpful for marketing your business.

Let me point you to some relevant articles to help you get better prepared to use Google+ for your business (we cover this stuff a lot at WebProNews):

Google+ For Business Discussed at ad:tech New York

How to Make A Google+ Page For Your Business

Google+ Pages A Must For Businesses, But Come Off As Rushed

Google+ Pages: 10 Things You Need To Know About the Terms of Service

Google+ Pages Roll Out Includes Google Apps

Google+ Just Got More Critical to Search

Google+ Pages for Businesses Now a Reality

Google+ Gets What’s Hot, Ripples, Photo Editing, Apps Integration

About the Author:
Chris is a content coordinator and staff writer for SmallBusinessNewz and the iEntry Network. Subscribe to SmallBusinessNewz RSS Feeds.