In case you didn’t notice, Google has recently rolled out its new search interface to everyone. Of course, I have been testing the interface for quite some time, so it was a smooth transition for me in that regards. The new search interface is not exactly something I was excited about, but there is no question it has a few ramifications for publishers. Content is still king, and Google’s new look and feel proves just that.

Content is king. It’s true that link building and on-page optimization tactics can help you get more out of your content. But you need to be involved in multiple content channels to maximize your organic traffic. Here are 8 steps you can take right away to enhance your chances of getting more traffic from Google:

• Add your Blog to Google News: if you have a multi-author blog and provide information to your visitors on a daily basis, there is no reason not to add your blog to Google News.
• Optimize Your Images: a lot of “gurus” have been using this tactic to generate some extra traffic on the side. Don’t just use free images you can find online. Take some of your own, optimize them properly, and give them descriptive names.
• Upload Your Videos: if you have not taken time to upload your videos to video sharing sites, now’s the time. Use the right keywords and tag your videos properly to maximize your opportunity.
• Add Your business: don’t forget to add your business to Google and get yourself on Google Maps. If you have a local business, there is no reason not to.  (more…)

We had heard some crazy rumors about Google taking into account site speed when it comes to ranking websites in their SERPs. Well, that seems to be official now. Google has announced that site speed is officially being considered towards website rankings in the SERPs.

Speeding up websites is important — not just to site owners, but to all Internet users. Faster sites create happy users and we’ve seen in our internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. But faster sites don’t just improve user experience; recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs. Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed — that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings.

I have mixed feeling about this. It’s true that Google will not give this factor a whole lot of importance in comparison to factors that determine the relevancy of your website to the searched keywords. Having a speedy website makes life easier on visitors and could improve ROI as well. But a speedy splog is not exactly what I call a user friendly website.

If you are a webmaster, you shouldn’t panic at this point. There are tools you can take advantage of to find out ways to optimize the speed of your website. In fact, Google itself discussed a few tools when announcing this move: (more…)

We have all heard of how real time search is the future. It’s actually not that far out if you think about it. Google’s Real Time search is a good indication to where the industry is heading. By integrating services such as Twitter, you can now do your search on Google more effectively, and in real time. I have talked about in the past how portal developers need to focus on videos, images, forums, blogs, and other avenues to maximize their presence on sites such as Google. But with real time search, you’ll have yet another revenue to get the word out about your product and get traffic back from Google in return.

As long as you are on the latest tab, you are going to see real time results on Google. It may seem a bit strange at first, but if you have been on Twitter for a while, it should come naturally to you. You can obviously click on the tags and search based on those.

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That’s not really a question if you listen to Matt Cutts and other top Google engineers. A Google redesign is in the works, and we are not just talking about the look and feel of the site. After all, who really cares about how Google.com looks as long as you get the most relevant results that help you move forward with your project. The future of search is social, mobile, and much more. Your only source of information will no longer be Google news. There are millions of people who are blogging, discussing issues in forums, creating videos, taking photos, and writing books on all kinds of topics. The next generation search engines bring all of that together.

If you have wanted to try this new Google design but have no clue how to, Gizmodo has you covered. The site has released a mini trick that forces your Google to use the new design to do your search. The trick does work, and the results are very interesting.

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Until now, Google has focused more on providing users with search results that are relevant to their search, helping them find information that applies to their situation. But it seems Google plans to put more emphasis on site speed in the near future. In a recent interview, Matt Cutts explained that a lot of people at Google believe that web needs to be fast and faster websites could get a bump in the results.

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It’s nice to see that Google has identified site speed as one of the factors that could affect searchers’ experience. Nothing can be more frustrating when you search for something only to find websites that just don’t load up. But the move to count site speed towards search engine rankings could open a can of worms for Google and publishers. It’s a known fact that spammers are very good at hacking, breaking, and doing everything but providing value. Does that mean these guys will get away with making their sites fast and climb the rankings once again? (more…)

MSN and Live are often not taken seriously by most folks. I have been a part of a bunch of SEO teams, and I remember every-time I brought up optimizing for MSN or Live.com, folks just considered that as a joke. But the truth is MSN.com and Live.com are still valuable, and with Yahoo! being oh so close to being bought by Microsoft, you could expect Live.com to become even more important for the future. It’s true that Google is still the king in the SEO town, but as most folks put their focus on Google, you can take advantage of that to optimize for MSN and get some extra traffic (for me personally, MSN + Live drive more traffic than anything but Google).

I know a lot of folks talk about how MSN system can be gamed, but in reality, you can optimize your site for MSN by putting some extra emphasis on on page factors. For instance, title, head, and bold tags do work well for MSN. In addition, your keyword density also counts towards a better ranking on MSN. While there are certain differences between MSN, Yahoo, and Google, the basics are pretty much similar. MSN does pay attention to internal links and more to incoming links as it’s not as sophisticated as Google in dealing with incoming links, but unless you push the envelope really hard, you are not going to hurt your rankings on Google by optimizing for MSN & Live.

At the end of the day, your focus should be on Google, but you can still get some top positions on Live or MSN, and there is no reason not to go for it. As the search industry becomes more competitive, you can expect the MSN game to get tougher as well, but you may as well play it now as long as you can.

As the 2008 winds down, we can officially call the year, the year of Facebook. Gone are the days that Facebook was a fun little place for kiddies to play. Facebook is now marketers dreamland, and let’s not forget that Facebook social ads have been nothing but revolutionary.

Facebook is still on the rise. I think we probably need a year or two to see all Facebook has to offer. It’s a tight-run ship however, and I don’t expect it to go anywhere. But here is the question that many folks are asking at this point. Is Facebook getting to big to depend on Google? What if Facebook decided in a year or two to block Google from even displaying it in the search engine results?

There is no reason to believe this scenario will happen, but I do believe that Facebook has an enough growth rate and viral characteristic that it could survive and even thrive if for some reason Google just went away. Facebook has become a drug for a lot of folks and they don’t seem to get anything done without updating their facebook status.

The way Facebook is growing, it could close the gap and even catch up with Google in terms of traffic in a couple of years. Will Facebook survive without Google? I’d like to think so. I am sure the world will be worse off if for some reason Google disappeared, but Facebook is certainly getting to a point where it could help folks get over Google.

Is Google’s algorithm really over-hyped? In some circles, questioning the merits of THE algorithm is a blasphemy. After all, Google has managed to grab a huge market share lead thanks to its oh-so reliable SERPs, and it’s really hard for folks to game the system, right? Wrong! I have been an advocate of Google forever now, but I can’t explain how disappointed I am with Google and its lack of focus on what matters the most.

Unreliable SERPs: A few days ago, I talked about how I was impressed with Google’s SearchWiki, and how bringing the human factor would help improve the results for all of us. But I am astonished by Google’s refusal in addressing the holes in its algorithm and putting the organic search gamers in their place. I am not talking about some magic black hat technique that folks are using to get ranked. But it’s truly disappointing to see a parked site be in the top 10 results for a fairly competitive keyword (for more than 6 months). And let’s not forget that you can put a keyword phrase in your domain and if you are lucky you may end up in top positions without lifting a finger. Reliable? No. Pathetic? You could say I am going there.

Denial: I am still surprised that Google continues it’s PR based ranking system when it has proven wrong over and over again. The fact that folks can buy links and get ranked high does not sit well with us purists. I have been an advocate of white-hat SEO for a long time now, and It amazes me when Google penalizes one company and then turn its cheeks the other way.

Bullying Tactics: Google’s recent tactics in dealing with those who violate its guidelines show why a monopoly is not the way to go in the search industry. With Microsoft poised to take over Yahoo!, the consumers are going to be left with even less options. Microsoft is not exactly the fairest company in the world, but here is pulling for them to get their search business straight.

At the end of the day, Google is still the best we have in the search industry. Will there be drastic changes in this market? I mean now sure. But I certainly hope that companies such Cuil and Microsoft can mount a serious challenge to Google in the organic channel.

You decide: Is Google the fairest of them all?

I know Google and other search engines are not exactly in love with search engine professionals. After all, whether you are a white-hat SEO or just a pure black-hat, your goal is to make modifications to your site and its links to get it ranked higher on the SERPs. But folks who think they can keep SEOs from manipulating the results are have something else coming.

History has shown that no system is secure enough or foolproof enough these days. If you don’t believe me, just ask those ninja security folks at Pentagon. They were attacked badly a couple of weeks ago, and that just shows that no matter how sophisticated your system, you are bound to be bested by a hacker (gamer).

Search engines have become more sophisticated through the years, but the problem is that they can’t deny us SEOs the data we need to figure out ways to beat their system. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in Black Hat tactics. There was a time I was fascinated by them, but you can’t build a business with black hat techniques. What most people don’t realize is that you don’t need to be a black hat to have massive success in the organic search channel.

Google folks talk about how they are going to do this and that and kill the SEO industry, but that has really not happened yet. I don’t believe there is anything Google can do to stop folks from gaming their system. Not in the next few years anyway. Google agents need to be improved immensely to be able to figure out real quality sites from SEO quality sites. That’s not easy to accomplish and won’t be foolproof either. I think the Oracle said it the best in the Matrix series. Every system has its balances and imbalances. We SEOs balance Google out. That’s just all there is to it.

Are you paranoid about Google domination? A lot of folks laugh at the idea but you’d be surprised how many top marketers are concerned about Google taking over the world. I remember a couple of years ago I would have just laughed at the idea that someone would be concerned about Google domination, but the truth is more folks these days are worried that Google will have enough power to just dominate the world.

But with the election of Barack Obama, more marketers are now concerned that Google will take over the government. If you haven’t been following the news, Barack Obama is thinking about appointing Google’s CEO as the first CTO in the U.S. history. That’s stunning good news for Google, but bad news for the paranoid nation.

I do believe that Google has built so many layers of core competency that it’d be difficult for any company to easily loosen Google’s stranglehold on the search industry, but at the same time I don’t find Google invincible. Far from it. Google can be beaten but it won’t happen overnight. Google is playing in so many markets that it would take a guerrilla effort to chip away at their lead.

Will Obama make Google king? I hope not. I know the folks at Google-land jumped on Barack Obama’s bandwagon soon but so did I and many other Americans. I don’t believe Google supporting Obama will get them any special benefits. I am sure Google supported Obama as he is pro net-neutrality. But at the same time, I think Americans should be concerned about a monopoly in the search market. We have something close to that going on right now, but if Yahoo! disappears and Microsoft fails to maintain a 25% share of the market, we are pretty much looking at a monopoly. I think it’s bad for business and bad for innovation.

Your take: is a Google monopoly a bad idea for the search industry?