Archive for the ‘ Twitter Tips ’ Category
Speed, Chrome and bugs. I’m not talking cars, grilles and things that stick to grilles. I’m talking about YSlow Page Speed being available for the Chrome browser, without needing an add-on, like Firebug. YSlow is a tool for webmasters that helps identify ways to speed up page load time.
Download YSlow for Chrome
Amazon sent a “Notice of Contract Termination” to all Illinois affiliates today in response to a new law in Illinois. The law, sponsored by Rep. Patrick Verschoore (D-Rock Island) and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), requires online retailers with affiliates in Illinois to collect sales tax and submit it to the llinois Department of Revenue (IDOR).
The email reads, “Unfortunately, a new state tax law signed by Governor Quinn compels us to terminate this program for Illinois-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by Illinois-based affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.”
Govern Quinn says the goal of the bill is to level the playing field and make things “fair” for brick and mortar main street companies that currently collect sales tax. The fact is Illinois is beyond broke and the state needs revenue. Instead of getting rid of redundant programs and wasteful spending, they looked to the Internet. The Governor also believes this will help create jobs. Guess he thinks consumers are going to shop more on main street and less online because of this legislation. Poor fella.
Amazon is fighting this new law calling it, “unconstitutional and counterproductive.”
Even though the damage this does won’t officially be reflected in unemployment figures, Governor Pat Quinn has caused people in his own state to lose jobs–at least temporarily, entrepreneurs always bounce back. Unlike the millions of Americans on unemployment, that won’t be an option for affiliates who made a FT living with Amazon (not that entrepreneurs would collect). Unlike union members protesting in Wisconsin for more more more, online entrepreneurs have no collective rights–and quite clearly no one looking out for their interests. —Maybe that needs to change.
In the meantime, if this creates a significant decrease in your income, contact a good attorney and tax account to come up with solutions, because there are solutions! Best Buy, Walmart and many other stores have also said they’ll welcome Amazon’s booted affiliates.
How many times have you needed to find a store, bank, post office, restaurant, dry cleaners, hair salon, coffee shop, taco stand, etc. that was open NOW? We’ve all been in that position either on holidays, weekends, during road or business trips, and later in the evening when places start to close.
Google’s mobile search has a new feature called Open Now. It allows iPhone and Android users to filter search results by establishments that are presently open. Users can also search by distance and review rating.
Source: Google Mobile Blog
How does Google know your business hours? You tell them–via your Google Places page. If you have a brick and mortar store, or your clients do, be sure this information is up-to-date.
If you haven’t read it, here is a link to the JcPenney “links gate” article.
The Dirty Little Secrets of Search
To give you a recap of the article, no doubt during some unauthorized web shopping at work, a New York Times reporter found that JCPenney was consistently #1 in Google for keywords like “casual dresses,” “home decor,” “skinny jeans,” “comforter sets,” etc. As stated in the article, the reporter felt it was odd that JCP outranked cooler (albeit more expensive) stores like J.Crew and Crate & Barrel and so an investigation ensued (aka they asked an SEO firm to explain what was going on).
What they found was that JCP had allegedly purchased or placed links on spam blogs and double gasp, those links were placed on pages related to what JCP was selling (dresses, rugs, jeans). The result was that JCP owned rank during the holiday season. The New York Times reporter felt that JCP cheated their way to the top and set up a meeting with Matt Cutts. But all Cutts did was irritate them with his, I-should-be-the-poster-child-for-the-calming-affects-of-medicinal-marijuana laid back attitude.
In the end, JCPenney.com received penalties across the board (from #1 to #70ish) for violating Google’s guidelines despite JCP’s claims that they had no knowledge of and were not involved with the links. Their SEO firm, SearchDex, got the axe. Matt Cutts got a vanity slap from the New York Times, and the NYT basically let the world know they’re in the dark ages. Whether you agree with the tactics or not, as an SEO you have to admit that JCP just shed its outdated image for something more…renegade…cowboy…defiant. Yeah, that won’t do anything to boost sales. Are they cool enough for you now NYT?
What are your thoughts? Do you admire JCP’s ambition? Think their SEO firm was totally irresponsible?
What if instead of waiting for Google to act on a spam report, you could just remove the site yourself?
A new experimental Google Chrome extension does exactly that. It allows you to remove sites from your Google search results, and then sends that information to Google. This pool of user feedback may become a signal in Google’s algorithm for dealing with web spam.
Losing the Fight on Spam?
Google took a lot of heat in 2010 and into 2011 for the increase in web spam. Ironically, Google claimed those changes were a result of improving the algorithm to better handle spam. Most people would tell you it had the opposite affect–except for the spammers of course. Google also reworked document-level classifiers to make it harder to rank well using spammy on page content, or hacked sites.
Google feels the focus must now turn to content farms. They’re asking Chrome users to provide feedback on low quality sites by using the Blocklist extension.
Chrome Blocklist Extension
Download Chrome here.
Chrome Blocklist Extension
Install the Blocklist extension.
How it Works
Perform a search on Google.
Chrome Search Results
Below each description are three links: Cache, Similar, and Block.
Clicking the Block link will remove the entry from your search results. This will not cause an entry from the next page to advance. If you remove one entry, then instead of 10 results on the page you’ll only have nine.
Icon
A red icon (Wilson! Wilson!) will appear in the upper right corner next to the tools icon. Click on this to see a list of sites you’re currently blocking. Each site will have a link with an option to unblock which you can do at any site.
As you block and unblock sites, the information is transmitted to Google.
While Yahoo plans on laying off 1% of its staff, Google’s Alan Eustace, SVP Engineering and Research announced the company hopes to hire 6,000 people in 2011. The announcement came January 25, 2011 via Google’s blog.
Eustance stated, “it will be our biggest hiring year in company history.” Google hired 4,500 people in 2010 and 6,000 in 2007. The hiring frenzy is needed to find bright minds to work on the many projects and initiatives in the hopper.
Source: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/help-wanted-google-hiring-in-2011.html
In an effort to make analyzing stats fair for everyone, Google has made Webmaster Tools less accurate. Starting February 3, 2011, page impressions listed under Search Queries will be reported differently. Previously, impressions were rounded up two or three numbers, for example 12,100. Now they will only be rounded up one or two numbers, for example, 12,100 becomes 12,000.
According to Google, the way impressions are calculated has not changed, but the way they are presented for you has. The change was announced by Pierre Far and Gary Illyes of the Webmaster Trends Analyst team as something requested by webmasters which will be, “a nicer representation for a better, less confusing experience.” Pierre Far further stated the change will allow webmasters to see long-term trends without being bogged down by daily fluctuations.
Suggestion: why not report numbers both ways?
One month after a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report on improving online privacy, Google launched Keep My Opt-Outs which is a plugin that blocks ad tracking cookies. It gives users the ability to decide if they want to deny ad cookies; however, opting-out doesn’t mean the ads go away, it just means the ads become repetitive aka annoying.
Taking privacy of the anonymous searcher even further, Google has a beta plugin for Google Analytics. That means users can deny cookies that provide data to you such as how long they were on the site, if they are a new or returning users, etc.
Mozilla (Firefox) has created the Targeting Advertising Cookie Opt-Out (Taco) plugin that allows users to deny behavioral ads. And Microsoft has sated that a “Tracking Protection” feature will be part of the next IE version with features similar to Google and Mozilla’s plugins.
Why the New Plugins?
The FTC released a report in December 2010 titled, “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers.”
There are three FTC guidelines in the report:
You can read the report (PDF) here.
If you’d like to comment on this issue or the report, submit your thoughts to the FTC by February 18.
References:
Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers. Rep. Federal Trade Commission, Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2011.
In May 2010 Google greatly improved Webmaster Tools by updating Search Queries to show how often your page appeared in SERPs for specific keywords along with clicks, clickthrough rate and average position. Welcomed changes! They’ve updated Search Queries once again. Let’s take a look at what’s new.
To access Search Queries, log into Webmaster Tools, click Your Site on the Web –> Search Queries, from the left-side menu. You’ll see a screen similar to what’s below.
New Statistics in Webmaster Tools
Right off the bat you’re going to notice the four new columns (highlighted above) which detail how well your rank, impressions, and click throughs have been for the month. Just by glancing at the page, you can see how well your keywords are doing and which need attention. It’s also serves as good feedback for how recent SEO changes are impacting your site. Drastic changes are red flags you’ll want to look into. (Is a new competitor on the scene and you were bumped, was there a penalty, does the site need an update, more links, etc.).
To sort results by greatest to smallest change, click the Change tab. Keep in mind, these are not real-time stats and by default cover the last month ending about three days prior. (For example, I checked these stats on October 6, but wasn’t able to see stats past October 3). To change the date range, click the drop down calendar as shown below.
Traffic Charts in Search Queries
As you can see, this is extremely helpful in reviewing the movement of your keyword phrases at a glance.
New Statistics in Search Queries
Another excellent feature by Google that is going to make reviewing impressions and keywords faster and easier.
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