The folks at State of Search were able to catch this first. For certain queries, Google is now showing actual conversations and video links from Google+ in the SERPs. You can see the comments, votes, and a whole lot more without having to opening up your Google+ account.

Google+ may not be a Facebook killer. But you simply can’t afford to ignore it at this point. Smart SEOs certainly are not. I may not agree with how Google is integrating Google+ results in the search engine results pages. But it’s happening anyway. Could it make more people get involved on Google+? We will have to wait and see.

Thesis Theme: it does not need any introduction. It is one of the most popular WordPress frameworks around. It is not only SEO friendly but is highly customizable from its backend.  There are a number of useful third-party plugins available for this too.

Headway: makes a great competitor to Thesis. This theme has a drag & drop designer which you can use to design your website exactly the way you want. It has a ton of options too.

Genesis framework: the Genesis theme framework is SEO friendly and quite versatile. It is easier to get started with for beginners as it comes with plenty of child themes you can pick up.

These WordPress frameworks can’t do miracles. You are still going to need killer content to succeed on Google, Bing, and other search engines. But they do help you put the right foot forward with SEO.

Not every site that lost rankings with Panda was a low quality site. Many web forums, small e-commerce sites, and affiliate sites with weak brand lost a lot of traffic. The above infographic by SEOBook shows the history of Google Panda. A year has gone by but many sites are not getting their rankings back no matter how hard they try. Some have removed their low quality pages, invested in developing better quality content, and have made significant changes to their site designs to no avail. As it was discussed on seroundtable, some webmasters are taking drastic measures to get their rankings back:

I am very frustrated at having a pandalized site, I have cleaned the site up and removed thin content but I am now left with 16K worth of 404 pages despite serving 410 in response. I am thinking of taking off google traffic by blocking in robots.txt and concentrating on yahoo/bing. Maybe wait six months till google is making any sense. What do members think of this idea?

Unfortunately, this is not the best idea. Ignoring Google is not a bad idea if it forces you to target new channels to bring traffic to your site (vlogging, guest posting, …). Google may stop crawling blocked pages but it does retain data on them. So blocking Google for 6 months or more may not be the right answer. But this opens a whole new discussions: should webmasters put all their eggs in one basket by only focusing on gaming Google’s search results? The answer is a no. Killer content strategy and branding are required to succeed in this day and age.

Sucuri: this service can be a life saver. It not only monitors your website for changes, it also gives you a helping hand with the malware removal process. A free scanning service is also included.

CodeGuard: a professional service that offers website backup and monitoring services. What’s nice about this service is the fact that it saves you time undoing the changes hackers may have made to your site.

There are many other services, such as VaultPress, that can come to your help when you are hacked. But the above services are affordable and show you how to get out of trouble fast.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree, but affects sites that go much further to load the top of the page with ads to an excessive degree or that make it hard to find the actual original content on the page. This new algorithmic improvement tends to impact sites where there is only a small amount of visible content above-the-fold or relevant content is persistently pushed down by large blocks of ads.

Of course, Google is quite hypocritical with this approach. The company literally makes a ton of money by shoving ads down our throats. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are folks who do not contribute anything special to the Internet and slap ads all over their pages just to make a buck or two. But some legitimate webmasters will be ruined by this latest policy by Google (let’s not forget that the company does not exactly like affiliate ads either).

With this latest move, Google continues its war against small publishers. No one argues that all publishers need to have a real business plan. But to penalize sites heavily this way while Google’s search results are filled with ads is quite alarming. Now here is the kicker. Even if you update your layout and move your ads somewhere where nobody will click on, Google won’t re-instate your rankings. It will take the search engine time to go through your pages to reflect layout changes.

Google is not small publishers’ best friend. These latest algorithm changes prove just that. But they are not something to cry about. No matter how Google penalizes your website, you always have a way to comeback by getting more active on social networking sites and adding more quality content to your site. Hoping to get free traffic from Google forever does not equate to a real business plan (which should include a real SEO strategy) anyway. At the end of the day, Google is a public company that does what is right for its shareholders. Content publishers should do the same.

Google has done it again. It is not done with slapping sites with Panda. It will now go after sites that have too many ads above the fold. Let’s face it. We are all tired of spam-looking websites with too many ads before you get to see any decent content. Google plans to change that:

we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.

But wait. Don’t above the fold ads perform well? Wouldn’t this be a killer for publishers who rely on ads to stay afloat. Google claims it won’t be going after sites with a normal number of ads in that area.

We understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content. This algorithmic change does not affect sites who place ads above-the-fold to a normal degree

Google encourages webmasters to use tools such as Browser Size to figure out whether they could be in trouble. You should also circle today’s date and check your Analytics results to see whether there has been a major drop in your rankings. Making changes to your site layout won’t make an immediate difference. But Google takes note of it as its crawlers go through your content again.

Google is not going to stop making changes to its algorithm. It is expected to introduce 500+ improvements to its system. This is just one of those. So brace yourselves.

By now, everyone has seen the latest changes that Google has made to its search engine. The company has deeply integrated its Google+ network into its search engine, giving its users the chance to do more complete searches (search + social). Of course, not everyone has liked the recent change. Twitter is certainly not happy about the way Google+ results are added to the SERPs. Some privacy groups are also concerned about the ramifications of this move. Now, the FTC has announced its intention to expand its antitrust probe of Google to its social network as well.

Not surprisingly, Google users do have the option to turn off results from Google+ if they choose to. But is Google promoting its own products over the information on the web unfairly? Google is quite unapologetic about the changes it has made:

We believe that our improvements to search will benefit consumers … The laws are designed to help consumers benefit from innovation, not to help competitors.

Adam Kovacevich, a spokesman for Google explained. It will be interesting to see how the FTC rules on this development. Google is clearly pushing Google+ through its search engine now (something Facebook and Twitter won’t have the opportunity to take advantage of). This is going to be an interesting year for Google or so it seems.

Google+ is a growing community. It may not have as many members as Facebook and Twitter yet. But the community is expected to reach new heights in the next couple of years. Considering that it is being run by Google, you’d be out of your mind not to invest some time building your presence in this community.

Google+ can be a game changer for your SEO efforts. It could not only help your pages get indexed faster, it may also drive a lot of traffic to your website. Here are 5 ways you can use Google+ to boost your SEO efforts:

• Make your profile SEO friendly: this should go without saying. The basics of SEO apply here. You should make sure your profile has the keywords important to you at the top and everywhere else. You need to be a bit creative here. Don’t forget to add your site links to the links section on your profile.
• Become an authority: this could be a game changer for your website. If you can build trust for yourself by sharing valuable content on Google+, you will have an easier time getting your content the attention it deserves. Becoming an authority does take a lot effort though.
• Link to your website: sharing other people’s stories and commenting on them is a must if you want to be successful on Google+. You should also promote your own work on your profile from time to time. Just don’t overdo it.
• Build solid relationships: let’s face it. Who you know does matter when you are trying to make your SEO campaign as successful as possible. If you manage to build solid relationships with heavy-hitters on Google+, you may get some link love or mention from them.
• Add social buttons and badges to your website: this is a must-do step. Google provides Google+ members with a number of buttons and badges. You should directly link your pages to your site too. Don’t forget to use rel=”author” property to give people more information about your content.

Google+ has not reached its full potential yet. The time to get involved on it is now.

Have you read those standard beginner SEO books that still suggest having an XML sitemap and alt tags could get a site to the top of the search engines? There are plenty of those books around. I am a firm believer that every little thing that you do counts. But to pretend having a XML sitemap could get your site to the top of the search engines by itself is ludicrous. In fact, not all sites may even need a XML sitemap. The answer to this question asked by the user PowerCurtain on Gogole Webmaster Central clarifies this:

I my Google Webmaster tools, I have created a sitemap.xml file, listing 21 URLs for my website. However, Google crawler is only indexing 16 out of 21 URL’s submitted. Could someone please help me solve this problem. Thank you.

From the description, this does seem like a small site. Google’s JohnMu had this to say about this question:

With a site of that size, you don’t really need a Sitemap file, we’ll generally be able to crawl and index everything regardless. Also, with such a small Sitemap file, you can just check the individual URLs to see if they’re indexed like that.

There are many situations in which a sitemap can be a difference maker. But for a small site, it probably won’t be. If you own a small site, you would be better off spending your time creating more content.

[Image credit: Wikipedia]

The RIAA and their buddies are not only after censoring the Internet and going after independent sites and online businesses, they are not too happy with Google either. The RIAA is claiming that Google has a special responsibility to fight copyright infringement. The entity agrees that Google has taken some modest steps to fight piracy but more needs to be done:

Sites that engage in infringing activity should not appear as the first results when searching for what entertainment content to download or stream. This just leads to more piracy and popularity of the site. Rather, whether a site is authorized or unauthorized to make copyrighted works available to the public should be a significant indicator in determining ranking of the result, with unauthorized sites having lower rankings than authorized sites.

The fact that Google continues to receive financial benefits from sites and applications that engage in piracy has been troublesome to those involved in the music industry. I do agree with the RIAA that the process of filing a copyright claim should be easier. We have had plenty of instances in which our own content has been stolen by content pirates. But should Google censor its results or remove YouTube videos that induce infringement?

The RIAA and its allies are determined to destroying the Internet as we know it. It is true that copyright holders have the right to challenge website listings and get them removed for copyright infringements. It is also true that Google should stop giving content thieves a revenue channel. But let’s hope Google does not go overboard with its anti-piracy measures. Nobody wins when results get censored on the Internet for bogus reasons.