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	<title>Bonehead SEO &#187; SEO Advice</title>
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	<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog</link>
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		<title>The Key to Ranking Well?  Don&#8217;t Sell Anything.</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/the-key-to-ranking-well-dont-sell-anything</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/the-key-to-ranking-well-dont-sell-anything#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:42:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[AdSense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ranking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[serp]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1133</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Yes, this is a bit tongue-in-cheek but there is quite a bit of truth in this statement based on the contents of those secretly discovered Google Quality Guidelines that came to light in 2011&#8230;but I need to back up a bit here first. Not too long ago a document was making the rounds of the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Yes, this is a bit tongue-in-cheek but there is quite a bit of truth in this statement based on the contents of those secretly discovered Google Quality Guidelines that came to light in 2011&#8230;but I need to back up a bit here first.</p>
<p>Not too long ago a document was making the rounds of the Internet that <em>appeared to be</em> the newest official Google Quality Guidelines document.  This document, most people hoped, would hold the secrets to ranking well within Google.</p>
<p>Now, you might wonder how this can happen.  After all, Google is especially secretive about what it takes to rank well within their site so how could it possibly be that the document used by Google Raters made it&#8217;s way online?  Was it a fake?  A distraction?  Something conjured up by a savvy online marketer to gain exposure?  Sounds very conspiracy-theorist doesn&#8217;t it?</p>
<p>Well, it&#8217;s actually not as exciting as one might think.  The fact is, Google hires folks from all around the world to do work for them and help them detect whether or not a particular web site should be ranked where it is based upon a variety of factors.  These people that Google hires, receive a document that tells them what specifically to look for and how to determine the merits of a site.  Due to the vast numbers of people who do this work, it&#8217;s not unheard of for one of these documents to make its way online.</p>
<p>The document (which has since been taken down online at the request of Google), contained an area that talked about spam; and how to determine what should be flagged as spam and what should not.</p>
<p>Whenever one of Quality Raters took a look at a website, it is their job to mark a site as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Spam</li>
<li>Not Spam</li>
<li>Maybe Spam</li>
</ul>
<p>Pretty basic right?</p>
<p>The criteria for marking a web page as spam should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been in the industry for even as little as a few months.  It&#8217;s really very basic knowledge, but just to clear up any confusion, here are the definite &#8220;no-no&#8217;s&#8221; when it comes to your own site (and which you can also read here:  <a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=35769#3">http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=35769#3</a>).</p>
<ul>
<li>Don&#8217;t use cloaking;</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t use hidden text;</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t use framed pages;</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t keyword-stuff your URL&#8217;s;</li>
<li>Don&#8217;t use JavaScript Redirects</li>
<li>Etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>Again, pretty common sense stuff.</p>
<p>But, what you don&#8217;t see here is that according to this document, Google Raters are to mark pages without any useful content and designed only to make money, as spam.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s no doubt that you&#8217;ve come across these pages yourself.  These are the ones that have domains parked on them and where there is nothing more than a listing of ads; pages that are chock full of ads that have very little unique content on them, etc.</p>
<p>And yes, it should be noted that even if a site is attempting to generate income using AdSense ads (Google&#8217;s own product), that this will likely be marked as spam as well.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, the blatant abuse of this has likely prompted Google to recently announce at PubCon that they (Google) will be taking a look at content that is immediately above the fold on a web page.  The assumptions are that Google will begin to penalize those sites that show ad-related content above the fold; above the fold meaning the content you can see on a web page without needing to scroll down.</p>
<p>Which brings me back to the whole point of the title of this post.  Does it make a difference in where you rank if you aren&#8217;t trying to sell anything?</p>
<p>Well, yes, and no.  We don&#8217;t know how sites are going to be affected by this new rule of having ads above the fold, but it is unlikely that major retailers who say, show products at the top of their pages in response to a specific product query, will not be penalized.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if a site is nothing more than a few bits and pieces of content yet chock-full of ads, especially ads above the fold, then it can be assumed that you would be penalized.   We&#8217;ll all just have to wait and see how it plays out but for now, if you&#8217;re one of the ones who has advertising listed above the useful content on your site, it would be advised to move those ads to a different location.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
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		<title>Get Noticed on Facebook Using Facebook&#8217;s Edgerank</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/get-noticed-on-facebook-using-facebooks-edgerank</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/get-noticed-on-facebook-using-facebooks-edgerank#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:40:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edge rank]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edgerank]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rank higher]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1123</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Like Google, who has their own algorithm which determines where to place sites in their search results, Facebook has their own algorithm as well called Edgerank. Now, you might not have heard of Edgerank before but it is incredibly important to understand if you want your content to rank well on Facebook. First of all, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Like Google, who has their own algorithm which determines where to place sites in their search results, Facebook <a href="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_c?offer_id=1&amp;aff_id=2693&amp;url_id=9" target="_blank"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-1127" style="margin: 5px;" title="Tools-to-Help-Your-Rank.120.60" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Tools-to-Help-Your-Rank.120.60.png" alt="" width="120" height="60" /></a>has their own algorithm as well called Edgerank.</p>
<p>Now, you might not have heard of Edgerank before but it is incredibly important to understand <em>if you want your content to rank well on Facebook.</em></p>
<p>First of all, what exactly is Edgerank?  Well, in a nutshell, it determines what you see when you log in to Facebook.    You may have noticed (at least I have), that sometimes you&#8217;ll be sitting there on Facebook and think &#8220;Hey, you know what?  I haven&#8217;t heard from Joe recently!  Wonder where he&#8217;s been?&#8221;  Actually, Facebook is determining how important Joe&#8217;s updates are to me.  If I haven&#8217;t visited his Facebook page in a while or interacted with him, then Facebook may not think that Joe is very important to me and thus won&#8217;t show me his updates that often.</p>
<p>On the flip side of this, Joe may not be updating very often and so Edgerank hasn&#8217;t given him a very high priority.</p>
<p>Essentially, if Joe posted photos, brief updates, changed his relationship status, updated his profile, or had done a   multitude of other things then he would have a higher Edgerank.</p>
<p>So what exactly does this algorithm take into account when determining what to show?  Well, there are actually three factors; Affinity, Edge Weight, and Frequency.</p>
<p>Affinity</p>
<p>Affinity is Facebook&#8217;s way of determining who should show up in your news feed.  If you tend to &#8220;like&#8221; someone&#8217;s status a lot, comment on their photos, write on their wall, etc., then the likelihood of them showing up in your own news feed is pretty good.</p>
<p>However, this does not mean that you will show up in <em>their </em>news feed.  Not exactly wonderful if you&#8217;re trying to a business or website noticed on Facebook is it?</p>
<p>But keep in mind that if you do all of the aforementioned things, &#8220;like&#8221; a status, comment on a photo, etc., the likelihood of them responding is pretty good.  And if they respond in some way, either liking your comment or writing on your wall, then this in turn, will increase the likelihood of you showing up in their news feed.</p>
<p>Weight</p>
<p>Weight is something that Facebook uses to decide <em>what </em>to place in your news feed.  For example, videos tend to get a higher Weight than does &#8220;liking&#8221; a users post; in essence, it&#8217;s how popular one kind of item is over another.  The problem with this is that the weight of something differs greatly upon the individual.  If you tend to view photos more than you do videos, then photos will be given a higher weight than videos will.</p>
<p>Overall however, photos, videos and links tend to get a higher weight than does liking a status update.  Something to keep in mind as your posting content on your wall.</p>
<p>Recency</p>
<p>Recency is a big factor.  The more recent something is, the bigger the factor in where it appears within Facebook.</p>
<p>So how do you work with all of this to help make sure that you&#8217;re Facebook page is important to your followers?</p>
<ol>
<li>Post interesting content frequently (but don&#8217;t spam).  If you have something you want to share, statistics show that videos, photos and links will play a larger factor in &#8220;audience participation&#8221; than will simple likes.</li>
<li>Use open-ended questions.  This is a time-tested sales strategy; you never want to give someone the option of saying &#8220;yes&#8221; or &#8220;no&#8221;.  By starting off a  post using who, what, where, when, or why will encourage more feedback than a question that elicits only a yes or no response.</li>
<li>Ask for interaction.  I&#8217;ve noticed that Bing in particular will post updates on Facebook that contain a photo and ask you to &#8220;caption this&#8221;.  Just be creative.</li>
</ol>
<p>Overall, the Edgerank algorithm isn&#8217;t very sophisticated but unlike Google&#8217;s algorithm which tends to be static in nature, Facebook&#8217;s is largely determined by the interaction of people; and therefore is a flowing, non-static entity.</p>
<p>The take-aways from all of this?  Use photos, videos and links when updating your page and status, encourage interaction, and ask open-ended questions.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Rich Snippets to Help You Rank Better</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/rich-snippets-to-help-you-rank-better</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/rich-snippets-to-help-you-rank-better#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[better rankings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[micro data]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[micro format]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[microdata]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[microformat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RDFa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rich snippets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1118</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One way to help your website get better rankings is to use what are called &#8220;rich snippets&#8221;.  Now, these are also referred to as &#8220;microdata&#8221;, &#8220;microformats&#8221; and even RDFa but for all intents and purposes, they&#8217;re all pretty much interchangeable.  The only difference is that the term &#8220;rich snippets&#8221; is the name that the search [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One way to help your website get better rankings is to use what are called &#8220;rich snippets&#8221;.  Now, these <a href="http://www.affilorama.com/?aff=ezycontent" target="_blank"><img class="alignright" style="margin: 5px;" src="http://www.affilorama.com/files/banners/Blueprint_125x125E.gif" alt="" width="125" height="125" /></a>are also referred to as &#8220;microdata&#8221;, &#8220;microformats&#8221; and even RDFa but for all intents and purposes, they&#8217;re all pretty much interchangeable.  The only difference is that the term &#8220;rich snippets&#8221; is the name that the search engines use while the other terms are the actual <em>code </em>that&#8217;s used to create the snippets in the first place.</p>
<p>First off, what are &#8220;rich snippets&#8221;?  Actually, it&#8217;s better to <em>show </em>you rather than just tell you.</p>
<p>Here, I&#8217;ve done a search for &#8220;peanut butter cookie recipes&#8221;.  The arrows in the image below show you how the search engines display these rich snippets.  In the first example, we have reviews of the recipe as well as links off to other recipes on the same site.  The last example shows us the sitelinks of the page.</p>
<p><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/richsnippetexample.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1119" title="richsnippetexample" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/richsnippetexample.jpg" alt="" width="548" height="349" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s been observed that sites that make use of these snippets are out-ranking their competitors.  The bottom line is, if your site / business has reviews, prices, products, etc., then it would be extremely advantageous for you to use these rich snippets on your own site.  Not only does it appear to have an advantage where ranking is concerned but as you can tell with the image above, it makes these listings stand out from the rest.</p>
<p>While getting into all of the separate details on how to mark up your site so that it displays these rich snippets would be extremely time-consuming, Google, Yahoo!, and Bing have all partnered up to give you a site that literally contains everything you need to know about them.  The site is at <a href="http://schema.org/">http://schema.org/</a> and they give you specific examples along with a variety of ideas that you can use including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Book</li>
<li>Movie</li>
<li>Event</li>
<li>Organization</li>
<li>Person</li>
<li>Local Business</li>
<li>Product</li>
<li>Offer</li>
<li>and so, so much more.</li>
</ul>
<p>Finally, Google gives you a rich-snippet testing tool at <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets">http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets</a> to help make sure that you&#8217;re on the right track.</p>
<p>Now, all this being said, it is important to note that just because your site is using these snippets, doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;ll automatically display in the search results.  There are a few tests that your site needs to go through in order to qualify &#8211; two important ones are</p>
<ul>
<li>You can&#8217;t have any errors on your site.</li>
<li>You can&#8217;t hide any snippets to help you rank better.</li>
</ul>
<p>To be honest, the use of rich snippets can be an entire book in and of itself but just know that if you implement these on your own site, and it gets the approval nod from Google, you definitely have an advantage in the search engines &#8211; while it&#8217;s no guarantee that you&#8217;ll rank better, if you can draw more eyeballs to your listing, the better off you&#8217;ll be all the way around.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday &#8211; Earning Links &amp; Mentions (Great Tips!)</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/seomoz-whiteboard-friday-earning-links-and-mentions-great-tips</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/seomoz-whiteboard-friday-earning-links-and-mentions-great-tips#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:23:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[seo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo training]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo moz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seomoz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[whiteboard friday]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1114</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just before the Holiday&#8217;s SEOmoz released a Whiteboard Friday video (entitled Whitebeard Friday) &#8211; LOL!  Get it?  And the information contained within it is indispensable if you&#8217;re looking to get a kick-start on the new year (or any other time of year for that matter). I cannot say enough good things about SEOmoz.  Click here using this [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Just before the Holiday&#8217;s SEOmoz released a Whiteboard Friday video (entitled White<em>beard</em> Friday) &#8211; LOL!  Get it?  And the information contained within it is indispensable if you&#8217;re looking to get a kick-start on the new year (or any other time of year for that matter).</p>
<p>I cannot say enough good things about SEOmoz.  <a href="http://go.seomoz.org/aff_c?offer_id=1&amp;aff_id=2693" target="_blank">Click here using this special link</a> to get 30 days for free.</p>
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<p>The video focuses on ways to get links and mentions for your own site.  Here are some of the tips that Rand offers:</p>
<ul>
<li>Give away your writing!  Guest post for others by doing a search in Google for &#8220;guest author or guest writer or guest blogger or guest contributor&#8221; &#8211; it&#8217;s also helpful to include your keywords as well to find sources you can write for.  &#8221;Guest Blogger + Dog Training&#8221; for example.  Also, Rand suggests using Google blog search and Google discussion search.  Both great resources for places to promote your writing.</li>
<li>Give away your videos.  In this video Rand recommends Wistia which actually gives you details on what your viewing audience is doing (a must have when you want to know if someone is bored to tears or if they have to keep going back and forth to re-watch something).   What Rand doesn&#8217;t mention in the video is that you <em>must be certain</em> your videos are branded.  Whether you use Wistia or another service such as YouTube, your brand must be somewhere on that video so that others can recognize you.</li>
<li>Give away your product.  If you give something of yours away you can ask others to cover it or talk about it.  Be wary of saying &#8220;Hey, here&#8217;s my product, could you link to it?&#8221;</li>
<li>Similar to giving away your product is giving away your time.  Offer to do something pro-bono and you could have not only a very happy client but someone who will sing your praises, link to you, and mention you quite often.</li>
<li>Give away your contact details.  So often you&#8217;ll see folks post helpful information, whether in forums, blog posts, on Facebook, Twitter, etc., and yet, if the person is interested in what you have to say, there&#8217;s no way for them to contact you.  Make this as public as possible!</li>
<li>Be sure you allow your images to be used.  You can add a creative commons license to them, etc.  But just be sure you&#8217;re getting the credit.  (This is really paraphrased &#8211; the video will give you more details).</li>
<li>Within your RSS feed, you have the ability to publish only partial feeds or full ones.  Choose the full feed.    Contents of feeds get used quite often and it&#8217;s best to have the full feed available for someone.  Also, when you do link within your own feed, use the full url including the http:// portion &#8211; otherwise that republished content won&#8217;t link back to you.</li>
<li>It&#8217;s likely you&#8217;ve collected data on your site visitors, etc.  This data may be extremely valuable to others.  But, you won&#8217;t know until you ask.  Refer to the end of the video for more details on this but suffice it to say, you can reach out to others whom you think may find your data valuable and then see if they&#8217;d be interested in receiving it.</li>
</ul>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Duplicate Content Clarified and Help Is Now Available</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/duplicate-content-clarified-and-help-is-now-available</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/duplicate-content-clarified-and-help-is-now-available#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:17:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Article Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[articles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canonical]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[duplicate content]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1094</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Once the Internet really started to gain ground, and more and more websites popped up everywhere you looked, it wasn&#8217;t long before people started looking for shortcuts when it came to their own content. Think about it, if you had 10 websites and had to write content for those 10 websites, this could get a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Once the Internet really started to gain ground, and more and more websites popped up everywhere you looked, it wasn&#8217;t long before people started looking for shortcuts when it came to their own content.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.affilorama.com/premium-report?aff=ezycontent" target="_blank"><img class="alignright" style="margin: 5px;" src="http://www.affilorama.com/files/banners/APprelaunch180x150px.gif" alt="" width="180" height="150" /></a></p>
<p>Think about it, if you had 10 websites and had to write content for those 10 websites, this could get a little tedious. Especially if one of the sites could overlap with another one.  For example, a site about Affiliate Marketing and one about Search Engine Optimization.</p>
<p>In many cases, webmasters used shortcuts to lessen their load and would use the same content on both of these sites.  Not only that, with the popularity of article marketing, now not nearly as prevalent as it used to be, these same website owners needed to get their articles syndicated and what better way, then to use content they already wrote right?</p>
<p>What happened along the way however, was something called a duplicate content issue.  This meant that the search engines were finding duplicate, or at least incredibly similar content across a wide variety of sites.  They had to keep their users happiness in mind and make sure that they were delivering relevant content.  So adjustments were made, some sites were penalized for having this duplicate content, while others seemed to rise above the fray.</p>
<p>Aside from these two issues; using the same content on sites owned by the same person and submitting the same article to article directories, there was also a third culprit which is called scraped content.  This is essentially those programs that promise you that all you need to do is install a blog, and they&#8217;ll do the rest (for a fee).  Generally this &#8220;rest&#8221; that they would do would be to take content <em>already available</em> across the Internet, add it to your blog and viola! you had instant content.  Not exactly a great idea.</p>
<p>And while written content is the major culprit here, duplicate content isn&#8217;t just contained to articles.  It can be in the form of something as similar as the structure of a website.  Yep, if your website setup looked a lot like another site&#8217;s content, this too could be considered duplicate content.</p>
<p>Now, you might think you&#8217;re out of the woods if you&#8217;ve never done any of these things, if you only own one website for example, if you&#8217;ve never syndicated articles, or never touched a program that published stuff for you, etc., but you might not know that even if you only own just one website, the content on your site might actually be considered duplicate.  Why?</p>
<p>This often occurs when a site owner hasn&#8217;t structured their site properly using the canonical link element.  As a matter of fact, in case you weren&#8217;t aware, Google considers the following sites <em>completely different from one another:  </em></p>
<ul>
<li>http://Somesite.com</li>
<li>http://www.Somesite.com</li>
<li>http://Somesite.com/</li>
<li>http://www.Somesite.com/</li>
</ul>
<p>Yes, they all go to &#8220;Somesite.com&#8221; but as far as Google is concerned, these are <em>all separate websites </em>and if you&#8217;re canonical isn&#8217;t set up correctly you could have been penalized and not even know it.</p>
<p>Google helped website owners make <strong>huge</strong> strides when it introduced this <a title="Getting a Handle on Your Canonicals" href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/getting-a-handle-on-your-canonicals" target="_blank">canonical link element</a>.  Without this, Google may think that you&#8217;re publishing the same exact content on multiple different websites.</p>
<p>But there are other ways too that you can be sure you aren&#8217;t falling into this trap.  One of the most recent pieces of help that Google has given to us is something that you&#8217;ll find within Google&#8217;s Webmaster Tools. In the event that you haven&#8217;t yet added a <a title="Getting a Handle on Your Canonicals" href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/getting-a-handle-on-your-canonicals" target="_blank">canonical link element</a> to your web pages but you <strong>HAVE</strong> set up a Google Webmaster Tools account, Google will now notify you if it detects duplicate content.</p>
<p>In addition to this simple change however, there are other things that you can do as well to avoid it all together.</p>
<p>The easiest one to avoid is using articles that other people have written on your site as content.  While it might seem really easy to do (and it is), Google will likely have already located the original document and your site will be considered the &#8220;duplicate&#8221;.  Which further means that you likely won&#8217;t show up in the search engines for the keyword you want.</p>
<p>Another big issue that comes into play is when you&#8217;re moving your own website.  If you do decide to move an existing site to a new domain, it&#8217;s incredibly important that you use a 301 redirect.  This will help the search engines understand that you are <em>permanently </em>moving the data from one site to another.</p>
<p>Lastly, to make <em>absolutely certain</em> that <em>your </em>content is attributed to you and no one else, <a href="http://kristinewirth.com/what-is-the-relauthor-attribute-with-google" target="_blank">use the rel=author attribute on your articles</a>.  This way, Google will know that you were the original author of the content and in the event that someone else uses your content without your permission, then Google will know it was you who originally wrote the content in the first place.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Is Google&#8217;s Wonder Wheel Gone?</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/is-googles-wonder-wheel-gone</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/is-googles-wonder-wheel-gone#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Jul 2011 16:43:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1038</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had recently been asked a question that I had not been asked about in a very long time and the question revolved around keyword research using Google&#8217;s Wonder Wheel tool. Now recently, as a matter of fact, within the past week, Google has changed their entire search page. If you head to Google.com, you&#8217;ll [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I had recently been asked a question that I had not been asked about in a very long time and the question revolved around keyword research using Google&#8217;s Wonder Wheel tool.</p>
<p>Now recently, as a matter of fact, within the past week, Google has changed their entire search page.  If you head to Google.com, you&#8217;ll see that on the left you now have a few different options than you had before.</p>
<div id="attachment_1040" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 250px"><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/old-google-wonder-wheel.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1040 " title="old google wonder wheel" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/old-google-wonder-wheel-300x245.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="196" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Google&#39;s Old Interface</p></div>
<div id="attachment_1046" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 250px"><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/new-google-interface.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1046 " title="new google interface" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/new-google-interface-300x229.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="183" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">New Google Interface</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>I know it&#8217;s kind of hard to see in these screen-shots (if you click on the images they&#8217;ll enlarge) so let me explain a little bit here.  In the old interface, Google had an option on the left hand side of the page where you could go to the Wonder Wheel.  This Wonder Wheel took the keyword you had searched on and given you a visual display of other related words and phrases to that search.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, Google has an <a href="http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?hl=en&amp;topic=27453&amp;guide=27444&amp;page=guide.cs&amp;answer=172628" target="_blank">Adwords help article</a> where they reference the Wonder Wheel and after clicking on the link to get to the Wonder Wheel tool, you get the following message:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/google-wonder-wheel-not-available.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1048 aligncenter" title="google wonder wheel not available" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/google-wonder-wheel-not-available-300x60.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="60" /></a></p>
<p>In the new interface, you no longer have the option of viewing the wonder wheel but instead now have a link that says &#8220;Related Searches&#8221;.  These are terms which are also related to the initial search term.</p>
<p>Now, these screen-shots were taken on different dates so the keywords may be just slightly different but let&#8217;s take a look anyway to see how similar they are when compared to one another.  In both cases the term &#8220;online shopping&#8221; was used.</p>
<p>The Old Interface (Wonder Wheel) Keywords</p>
<ul>
<li>online clothing stores</li>
<li>online fashion shopping</li>
<li>online shopping articles</li>
<li>online shoe shopping</li>
<li>online deals</li>
<li>online auction</li>
<li>online clothes shopping</li>
<li>online grocery shopping</li>
</ul>
<p>The New Interface</p>
<ul>
<li>online grocery shopping</li>
<li>online shoe shopping</li>
<li>online shopping india</li>
<li>online shopping trends</li>
<li>online shopping sites</li>
<li>online clothing stores</li>
<li>online deals</li>
<li>online auction</li>
<li>online stopwatch</li>
<li>online games</li>
<li>overstock</li>
<li>forever 21</li>
<li>gvc</li>
<li>macys</li>
<li>shoes</li>
<li>tv shopping</li>
<li>internet shopping</li>
<li>home shopping</li>
<li>catalog shopping</li>
<li>yahoo shopping</li>
</ul>
<p>So, not a whole lot of similarities are there?  Aside from maybe one term which is &#8220;online grocery shopping&#8221;.</p>
<p>But, there are a lot more terms available underneath the new interface including some branded terms such as overstock.com.</p>
<p>So how are you to work with this new information if the wonder wheel is no longer an option?</p>
<p>Well one suggestion is to start drilling down on these terms.  Like the Wonder Wheel which let you click on each &#8220;spoke&#8221; of the wheel in order to drill down, you can do the same thing with related searches.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s how, and it&#8217;s a little tricky.</p>
<p>If we click on &#8220;online grocery shopping&#8221;  (after clicking on &#8220;related searches&#8221; on the left) it will change the search box to that term, and give us results.</p>
<p><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/related-searches-online-grocery-shopping.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1049" title="related searches online grocery shopping" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/related-searches-online-grocery-shopping-300x81.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="81" /></a></p>
<p>But&#8230;if we want to drill down to that specific keyword and get ideas on other terms related to &#8220;online grocery shopping&#8221; then we need to click on the link that says &#8220;more like this&#8221;.</p>
<p><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/online-grocery-more-like-this.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1050" title="online grocery more like this" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/online-grocery-more-like-this-300x88.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="88" /></a></p>
<p>This will bring up related searches for that term such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>kroger</li>
<li>peapod</li>
<li>fresh direct</li>
<li>whole foods</li>
<li>sams club</li>
<li>online organic grocery shopping</li>
<li>online grocery shopping nyc</li>
<li>cheap online grocery shopping</li>
<li>best online grocery shopping</li>
<li>walmart online grocery shopping</li>
<li>etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>Now, if I were someone who was interested in optimizing a page for the term &#8220;online grocery shopping&#8221; then I would make sure to use the terms that Google says are related to that term.  If you click on the image above to enlarge it, you&#8217;ll see that within the related searches many of the terms are bolded.  As a matter of fact, the ONLY terms that aren&#8217;t bolded are the ones that have our initial search term of  &#8221;online grocery shopping&#8221;.</p>
<p>This tells me, that if I&#8217;m going to optimize a page for this term then I should also use:</p>
<ul>
<li>organic</li>
<li>nyc</li>
<li>cheap</li>
<li>best</li>
<li>walmart</li>
<li>prices</li>
<li>delivery</li>
<li>amazon</li>
<li>delivery service</li>
<li>outlet</li>
<li>grocers</li>
</ul>
<p>See how easy that is?</p>
<p>So next time you&#8217;re doing your keyword research and can&#8217;t find the Wonder Wheel, never fear, you now have a list of related keywords to use on your page all courtesy of Google.</p>
<p>Written by <a rel="author" href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/what-boneheadseo-is-all-about/about">Kristine Wirth</a>.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/is-googles-wonder-wheel-gone/feed</wfw:commentRss>
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		<item>
		<title>Understanding Rich Snippets</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/understanding-rich-snippets</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/understanding-rich-snippets#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:49:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[On Page SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[microdata]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[microformat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[RDFa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rich snippets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[snippets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1025</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Not too long ago, Google announced a way to search for recipes online (which is very cool by the way).  You can search for an ingredient, a recipe, how long something will take to prepare, and even how many calories a recipe has.  (See the video below).  But even though I fell in love with [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Not too long ago, <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducing-recipe-view-based-on-rich.html" target="_blank">Google announced</a> a way to search for recipes online (which is very cool by the way).  You can search for an ingredient, a recipe, how long something will take to prepare, and even how many calories a recipe has.  (See the video below).  But even though I fell in love with this idea, what caught my eye was the fact that Google is using rich snippets for this information; something that you may not have heard of before but certainly something that can come in handy for your own business.</p>
<p>First off, rich snippets are a way to showcase certain things about your business.  If you run a website that shows recipes you can use rich snippets to display that recipe.  Additionally, you can also use these snippets to show reviews of your business, products your business has, and even events that you may be holding.</p>
<p>Now sometimes this can be a little confusing because there are multiple ways to refer to this kind of content that you add to your site.  The actual content itself is called a &#8220;rich snippet&#8221; but the <em>code </em>that&#8217;s used to format this content is referred to as &#8220;<a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=176035" target="_blank">microdata</a>&#8220;, &#8220;<a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=146897" target="_blank">microformats</a>&#8221; or even &#8220;<a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=146898" target="_blank">RDFa</a>&#8221; (and if you have a recipe you want to showcase, then you would use the <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=173379" target="_blank">hRecipe microformat</a>).</p>
<p>The best way to understand these snippets is to simply show you.  Here&#8217;s a screen shot of an <em>organic search result </em>after doing a search for restaurants in Chicago.  Note the reviews shown in the <em>organic </em>listings.</p>
<p><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/chicago-rest-snippet-reviews.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1029" title="chicago-rest-snippet-reviews" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/chicago-rest-snippet-reviews.jpg" alt="" width="624" height="100" /></a></p>
<p>These rich snippets also include breadcrumbs, prices, and more.  And remember, these rich snippets are data that show up within the <em>organic listings</em>.  This is important because typical organic search results are often very similar.  There&#8217;s a blue link that will take you to the page of the site that&#8217;s listed, a brief description of the page, and the web page&#8217;s URL.  That&#8217;s about it.  But with rich snippets, you can take this so much further and make your listing stand out from the rest of the listings.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s important to note that just because you&#8217;re using these snippets on your web pages does not mean that you will rank higher in the search results nor does it mean that Google will automatically start showing these snippets but they do say that they&#8217;ll check your site for these snippets when they come to pay a visit.</p>
<p>Now although the name might sound a little intimidating, all it really takes is some basic knowledge of HTML in order to implement these snippets onto your own site.  And you can choose whichever format you prefer, the microdata, microformat or RDFa.</p>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve picked one of these for your own site, you can also use <a href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets" target="_blank">Google&#8217;s Rich Snippets testing tool </a>to see how your site may appear in the search results with this data.  Google also <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/request.py?contact_type=rich_snippets_feedback" target="_blank">offers a way</a> to tell them that you have this data available on your site.</p>
<p>Although it might sound a little confusing right now, visiting any one of the above sites will show you examples of rich snippet data.  The bottom line is, if you have any of the following located on your site:</p>
<ul>
<li>Reviews</li>
<li>People (Think LinkedIn)</li>
<li>Products</li>
<li>Recipes</li>
<li>or Events</li>
</ul>
<p>You&#8217;ll want to strongly consider adding rich snippets to your site if anything, to make certain that you stand out in those search results.</p>
<p><object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IsUN1dUbbM8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IsUN1dUbbM8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="349"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>Video Sitemaps Can Mean Loads of Traffic</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/video-sitemaps-can-mean-loads-of-traffic</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/video-sitemaps-can-mean-loads-of-traffic#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:42:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mrss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reel seo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video sitemaps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[video xml feed]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=1017</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Video is incredibly popular online; I&#8217;m sure I don&#8217;t need to tell you that. But, there is a way that you can help the traffic that your videos receive by using what&#8217;s called a video sitemap. Similar to a sitemap that you&#8217;d use on your site to help your visitors navigate through your content or [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Video is incredibly popular online; I&#8217;m sure I don&#8217;t need to tell you that.  But, there is a way that you can help the traffic that your videos receive by using what&#8217;s called a video sitemap.</p>
<p>Similar to a sitemap that you&#8217;d use on your site to help your visitors navigate through your content or the search engines to discover all of the pages on your site, a video sitemap will help the search engines discover those videos that you&#8217;ve created which may be self-hosted; that is, not placed on sites like YouTube.</p>
<p>You see, sites like YouTube get indexed often and you don&#8217;t necessarily have to do anything in particular to your videos aside from some basic SEO when you add them.  But, if you host videos on your own site or use <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/s3/" target="_blank">Amazon&#8217;s S3</a> program then you&#8217;ll need a way for those videos to get discovered by the search engines and that way is by using a video sitemap.</p>
<p>Now, these video sitemaps require a bit of coding on your part since they&#8217;re written in XML format and <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=80472#1" target="_blank">Google has a very in-depth tutorial</a> on how to do that.</p>
<p>But, what you may find more helpful is this nearly hour and a half long webinar that REEL SEO did with Google. <a href="http://www.reelseo.com/about/" target="_blank"> REEL SEO</a> provides advice and services on video marketing specifically and in this webinar, they cover the aspects of Video Sitemaps which may help you out quite a bit more than just reading through the tutorial itself.</p>
<p>When you&#8217;re finished with the video, you can also read a <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/12/sending-video-sitemaps-q-holiday-cheer.html" target="_blank">very thorough Q&amp;A session</a> that occurred after the webinar.</p>
<p>So if you&#8217;ve got some time, self-host your own videos and want to know how to get those indexed then the following video is for you.</p>
<p><object width="425" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kks0wPkX12I&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;version=3" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kks0wPkX12I&amp;hl=en_US&amp;feature=player_embedded&amp;version=3" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>The Google Farmer Update and EzineArticles</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/the-google-farmer-update-and-ezinearticles</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/the-google-farmer-update-and-ezinearticles#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:58:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Article Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[website traffic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chris knight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ezinearticles]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google farmer update]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google panda update]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=996</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[By now you have no doubt heard of the massive update that Google did to it&#8217;s algorithm and what impact it had on a lot of websites that previously (and for years I might add), have ranked well.  You can see the massively large negative impact it had on a lot of websites at Sistrix [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>By now you have no doubt heard of the massive update that Google did to it&#8217;s algorithm and what impact it had on a lot of websites that previously (and for years I might add), have ranked well.  You can see the massively large negative impact it had on a lot of websites at <a href="http://www.sistrix.com/blog/985-google-farmer-update-quest-for-quality.html" target="_blank">Sistrix</a> but for ease of use, I&#8217;ve included their ranking table below.</p>
<p><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/sistrix-table-ranking-drops-after-farmer-update.jpg"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/sistrix-table-ranking-drops-after-farmer-update2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1000" title="sistrix table ranking drops after farmer update2" src="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/sistrix-table-ranking-drops-after-farmer-update2.jpg" alt="" width="497" height="544" /></a></p>
<p>As you can see from this list there were quite a few sites that are relatively well-known who suffered a huge ranking loss.  But the site that I want to focus on is EzineArticles.com.</p>
<p>I have always been a big proponent of writing original articles for distribution &#8211; most notably at EzineArticles.  They do bring me traffic and tend to get published on other sites around the web quite a bit.  I&#8217;m no Shakespeare but think I can hold my own pretty well when it comes to talking and writing about the topics that I do.</p>
<p>So when I noticed the HUGE drop in traffic [YIKES!] that EzineArticles received, it made me wonder if I should still at least at this time, recommend them as a traffic source for you.</p>
<p>Well, there&#8217;s good news and bad news on this front.  The good news is that EzineArticles has always been a good source of traffic for many people and as such, is still a recommendation by many online marketers &#8211; whether that recommendation is from 5 years ago or from 5 weeks ago.  The fact is, EzineArticles still has plenty of people recommending them. <em> </em></p>
<p>But, since their traffic has dropped so significantly the chances of you getting found within Google for your article at EzineArticles.com is now pretty much insignificant.</p>
<p>I actually wondered if maybe Google had made a mistake; after all, the algorithm changes are just computer programs.  Yes, they&#8217;re written by the brightest of the bright but the program itself is still just a&#8230;well&#8230;program.   While I can&#8217;t recall off of the top of my head exactly what the case was, I do seem to remember on one occasion or another of some sites getting caught in the crosshairs by mistake.</p>
<p>That said, I do believe that adding your articles to sites like EzineArticles is still a good idea, but at least at this point in time, the traffic that you will be getting will likely not be from the Google themselves.</p>
<p>I suggest that you take a look at your site logs and see how much of the traffic came directly from EzineArticles themselves and how much came from Google for the keyword you optimized your article for.  This will likely be a deciding factor in whether or not you choose to keep contributing content to them.</p>
<p>I further suggest that you also take a look at the <a href="http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2011/02/search-engine-algorithm-changes.html#more-11693" target="_blank">response from Chris Knight</a>, owner of EzineArticles to see what his take is on the whole situation.  It&#8217;s a fairly lengthy blog post but mainly from the over 400 comments that have already been made about their current situation.</p>
<p>All in all, it all comes down to traffic.  You need to determine for yourself and on a site by site basis, how well those articles have worked for you.</p>
<p>On a related note, quite a while ago I posted about the<a href="http://boneheadseo.com/blog/the-ezinearticles-com-wordpress-plugin"> EzineArticles WordPress Plugin </a>which allowed you to post articles directly from your own WordPress blog to EzineArticles.  At this point in time, they will no longer be allowing you to do so as noted in their blog post about <a href="http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2011/02/search-engine-algorithm-changes.html#more-11693" target="_blank">Google&#8217;s algorithm update</a>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>***** UPDATE 3/15/2011 *****</strong></span></p>
<p>Shortly after I published this, Google&#8217;s Matt Cutts released a Google Webmaster Tools video about article marketing in general.  While he didn&#8217;t specifically mention EzineArticles, he did specifically speak to article marketing directories.  Here&#8217;s the video:</p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/x5xP-pTmlpY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
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		<title>Google &amp; Bing DO Count Facebook &amp; Twitter Links</title>
		<link>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/google-bing-do-count-facebook-twitter-links</link>
		<comments>http://boneheadseo.com/blog/google-bing-do-count-facebook-twitter-links#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Dec 2010 21:53:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kristine</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Bing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nofollow links]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social status]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boneheadseo.com/blog/?p=993</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[**** Cross-posted from http://KristineWirth.com **** In a recent Google Webmaster Help video (see below), Matt Cutts, head of Google&#8217;s Webspam Team answers one of the most popular questions that many websites have and that is &#8220;Does Google use Twitter and Facebook Links as a ranking signal?&#8221;  The definitive answer, from Matt is &#8220;Yes&#8221;. To be [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>**** Cross-posted from http://KristineWirth.com ****</p>
<p>In a recent Google Webmaster Help video (see below), <a href="http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/" target="_blank">Matt Cutts</a>, head of Google&#8217;s Webspam Team answers one of the most popular questions that many websites have and that is &#8220;Does Google use Twitter and Facebook Links as a ranking signal?&#8221;  The definitive answer, from Matt is &#8220;Yes&#8221;.</p>
<p>To be honest, this rather surprised me because rarely have I ever heard Matt answer a question with such forthright authority.  Usually the answer is more along the lines of &#8220;Yes, but&#8230;&#8221; with all kinds of subjective material added to the answer; making it virtually impossible to detect if what you&#8217;re doing yourself actually matters at all.</p>
<p>This question stemmed from a recent article written by Danny Sullivan Editor-in-Chief at <a href="http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389" target="_blank">Search Engine Land</a>.</p>
<p>In this article (which is a great read by the way), Danny offers responses by both Bing and Google on specific questions such as:</p>
<ol>
<li>If a link is retweeted or referenced a lot in Twitter, do you count this as a ranking signal?</li>
<li>Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets?</li>
<li>Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending upon who Tweeted it?</li>
<li>Do you try to calculate the authority of someone on Facebook?</li>
<li>Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight on Facebook depending upon who posted the link?</li>
</ol>
<p>It&#8217;s very interesting to read the answers and even more interesting to associate it with your own activity on both of these social networks.</p>
<p>Part of the curiosity with Twitter in particular, is because Twitter does not follow links.  They used to, but I believe it was back in 2009 some time, they added nofollow to all of their links.</p>
<p>What this means is that even though you&#8217;re tweeting a link and others may retweet it, the &#8220;nofollow&#8221; portion of that link is telling the search engines &#8220;Hey, if you see this link, don&#8217;t follow it to its destination and give that destination credit for it.&#8221;</p>
<p>But what&#8217;s so much more important here is what Danny has referred to as &#8220;SocialRank&#8221;.  And I am totally on board with him here&#8230;let me explain&#8230;</p>
<p>Years (and I mean years ago) when Google especially was gaining ground as the &#8220;go to&#8221; search engine, people realized that you could manipulate the rankings by:</p>
<ol>
<li>Stuffing a bunch of keywords into your meta keywords tag (and if you don&#8217;t know what this is, don&#8217;t worry, it doesn&#8217;t matter any more anyway).</li>
<li>Stuffing your page full of keywords in order to rank well for the keyword you were after.</li>
<li>Hiding text on the page in the same color as the page background so that the search engines could read it but your site visitors couldn&#8217;t.</li>
</ol>
<p>When this failed to work any longer, people realized that links were a major factor in where you ranked.  And so&#8230;reciprocal linking came along (that&#8217;s when you trade links with someone else in an effort to help increase the importance of your website.)</p>
<p>Again, Google soon realized that this wasn&#8217;t really a *true* indicator of authority and so it began discounting these kinds of links.</p>
<p>So it became important to try and get links to your website from other important websites (&#8220;important&#8221; as deemed by Google), in order to help your own website ranking.  This &#8220;importance&#8221; at least in reference to Google is referred to as PageRank which you can see by installing the Google Toolbar within your browser.</p>
<p>But&#8230;it&#8217;s also important to understand that the PageRank that you <em>see in your browser for a web page</em> is NOT the *true* PageRank of a web page or website.  As a matter of fact, it&#8217;s quite old information.  According to <a href="http://googlepagerankupdate.com/" target="_blank">Google PageRank Data</a>, the last time it was updated was April 2, 2010 (it&#8217;s now late December 2010).  So&#8230;over 8 months ago.</p>
<p>The fact is, Google updates this <em>internally</em> quite often but what you may be looking at today is in fact, 8 months old.</p>
<p>So, all this comes down to this:  Google has hundreds of ranking factors that determine where to place you within it&#8217;s search results and for what given terms.  People know a <em>little</em> about how Google determines importance of your web pages, but like all indicators that we at least know of, it can all be manipulated.  Whether or not you choose to manipulate it is up to your own moral standards, but the one thing that is <em>extremely difficult</em> to manipulate is your online reputation.</p>
<p>Who believes you?  Who trusts what you say?  Who retweets your links?  Et cetera, et cetera&#8230;</p>
<p>This is what Danny refers to within his article.  And I truly believe that this is the wave of the future for websites and their owners; simply because it is so difficult to fake.  If people trust you, they&#8217;ll read more of your stuff.  If you offer valuable information, you&#8217;ll be talked about more online, and so on.</p>
<p>Consider a great example of <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/marismith" target="_blank">Mari Smith</a> who is trusted by thousands of people online for her information and advice on how to use Facebook effectively.  She is a fantastic example of how SocialRank likely works.  I guarantee that if Mari posts a link, it&#8217;s retweeted and shared on Facebook a thousand times over.  She has &#8220;SocialRank&#8221;.</p>
<p>Take the time to read the <a href="http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389" target="_blank">article by Danny</a> &#8211; I think you&#8217;ll find it very enlightening.</p>
<p>P.S.  The video by Matt is below&#8230;</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="560" height="340" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ofhwPC-5Ub4?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="340" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ofhwPC-5Ub4?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
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