Google Drives Me Crazy
April 30, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Google Drives Me Crazy
This post was originally posted in 2009.
That’s right Google drives me crazy, but it still shows this website and blog a lot of love. The overall site and blog rank extremely, as in it ranks on the first page for over 60 keyword phrases that we target. That’s the love part. The crazy part for this site is it can’t seem to make up its mind when it comes to the keyword phrase, Local SEO. It can’t make up its algorithm on which page that it should rank higher our Home page or the Local SEO page.
I though that Google had settled on our home page as the primary page for this search. For most of the summer it settled into the # 4 position. Then in August it started bouncing between these two pages and our rankings suffered. Over the last three days it had delivered our Home page first. Today, it is serving up the Local SEO page first. A lot of this has to do with what data center your search was directed towards.
Yes, Google results are not the same across all of their data centers. I have never seen an explanation for this but it continues to be a problem, at least for people like me.
My other really big concern is the changes that Google is making to its Local Business Center (LBC.) (Now Google Places) They are rolling out new add features that have been appearing in San Francisco and San Diego and that have been widely covered by local maps followers.
For those outside of our industry the LBC simply is the known as Google Business maps.
Just when I was ready to start offering optimization of the LBC for clients Google started rolling out new features. This caused a major upheaval in the results. The LBC algorithm is separate from the primary results that it produces. It is based on what is known as citations.
These citations usually appear as recommendations and reviews that appear on other websites. These have disappeared not only for us but all across the board. This caused many websites to be dumped off of the first page of the maps. This is not a very good thing at all.
So from one day to the next Google sends me and thousands of others into frenzy while we try to figure out what is going on. Generally, these work themselves out… in a week or two. Did I say that I am still waiting! This new add placement feature will make us all rethink Local SEO.
04/20/2011 This craziness continued at a rampant pace in 2011 with the May Day update and Places Search roll out just to name a few changes. The biggest change is Google’s push into local markets. It has rolled out and then closed Tags.
Google is also slowly rolling out an AdWords product for local business that it calls Boost. It is the spawn of the testing that I spoke of earlier. Boost is basically a fixed price AdWords program for local markets. This might be a promising option for local advertisers.
It really all depends what the price per month per keyword phrase is before one can accurately determine what the cost/benefit is. I, for one, have never used AdWords but I might consider offering Boost for clients. It all depends what Google is going to charge.
What say you?
Our Services:
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
The Hassles Of Getting Your Content Stolen
April 29, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
The Hassles Of Getting Your Content Stolen
Owning a popular and successful website can be a lot of fun. It can also be a lot of work. Then again, It can also be a real big hassle. Today, out of the blue I got a feeling that my content was getting ripped off… again. So I clicked over to Copyscape which I have written about previously on this blog. Copyscape searches the net for possible duplicate content issues.
I have previously discovered stolen content using this site. Then I would later file a DMCA take down report on one offending site. Well, today I found that someone had created Tucson SEO Solutions on Blogspot. Someone was using a Google blogging site to rip off my company name and the content of my home page. Google doesn’t much respect trademarks but it does address stolen content or I sure hope so.
Copyscape also located a Tucson based design company was ripping off my content in adds that they were placing on Backpage .com. I called and left Michael of (deleted – he apologized info removed) and left a message requesting that he stop what he is doing. It’s only a few lines but it includes my signature line. One that I am especially proud of.
Update 07/11/2009 Six weeks later Michael has discovered this post which is buried on page three of the Google results. He finally relented and said that he was sorry in an email today. He also seemed confused about the reference to Snowflake in this post and thought it was a racial slur. No Michael Snowflake is a town in Arizona. I was using basic SEO techniques to target the term Snowflake SEO. Any good SEO provider would know this.
Since you don’t understand SEO when you see it how can you then go about selling yourself as an SEO provider. This posts ranks # 5 in the Google results for Snowflake website design. I don’t waste posts Michael I optimize everything that I do.
Update: 07/23/2009 Forgiven! I just hope you learned a lesson Michael! His apology was left as a comment below. He could not bring himself to call or answer his phone when I called. He apologized before in a comment but then he threatened to do it again, if I didn’t remove the post.
That’s not what I would call an apology. I am relenting, as he did sound more sincere this time around and I really don’t care anymore. I’ve got plenty of small fires to extinguish elsewhere.
Update 08/22/2009: Well, I recently checked Copyscape and for the very first time it did not show that anyone was ripping off my content. What a relief!
The point here is that you, me, and all of us must protect our content and company name at all times. I read a post a while back that suggested that we protect our business names on all the major sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social sites. I thought it was a good idea but not one that I was ready to implement at that time. I never considered that someone would grab my company name and content and put it on Blogger.
It took a bit of work to figure out how to report someone ripping off your content using Blogger. Trying to contact Google about anything can be a daunting task. After about 20 minutes I figured out the process.
I have already begun the process of creating accounts on many of the major social media sites but that only scratches the surface. Protecting ones name online can be almost a full time job even when you are not being attacked. Think about all the social media sites out there that have blogging capabilities. Now, perhaps, you can get a clearer picture of how big the challenge can be.
I checked this persons other blogs and found that other great sites are getting a similar treatment such as SEOdiva and Bruce Clay along with a few dozen other sites.
As for me, I just don’t get it. I am basically a fairly ethical person and that works well for me. I just don’t get what motivates someone to go after someone else that they have never personally known. When someone does these things for thrills they don’t care about the personal and financial damage that they often inflict. Most of us are small business owners just struggling to stay afloat in these difficult times. We are often not prepared for the cost or time involved to keep on top of things.
Intellectually I understand the thrill and satisfaction they must receive but spiritually and personally I can not. While I don’t believe in revenge I can appreciate the motivation behind such actions. It’s the biblical version of “an eye for an eye.” But just screwing with someone because you can is like a foreign language to me. I can’t understand it.
As for the guy that stolen content for his ads, well that say’s two things to me that he’s not a very good writer and maybe our content is just plain good!
What say you?
Our Services:
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Is There Such A Thing As A Perfect Link ?
April 28, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Is There Such A Thing As A Perfect Link ?
That seems like a reasonable question to ask. After all there has been so much conflicting information written about links. We figured that since our audience comes here for small business SEO solutions they could use some clarification on the subject.
The perfect link from our perspective is:
A perfect link would be from a site with high Page Rank. The problem here is that many of our readers don’t understand PR. So here’s the skinny on PR. It is a grade that Google places on websites that correlates to trust. The scale goes from n/a through 10, with 10 being the highest score. You can find out the PR of any website if you are using a Google toolbar with Page Rank enabled.
That’s the simple answer for PR. So let’s look at a few other aspects of the perfect link.
The perfect link should offer some benefit to the person that is actually clicking on that link. So it is a good idea that the link should be industry specific or related to your website in some way. A good example of this is a doctor in Tucson linking to a doctor in Chicago. It should also include the targeted keyword phrase related to the site that it is pointed to in the anchor. In this case you might want to link to a page about flu prevention. That link then might read “flu prevention methods.”
That links should be “Do Follow” thus it will pass link juice. You control this on your website, but you can not control it on another website. If the link is what as know as “No follow” it will have no impact on search rankings but may generate traffic to your website.
The perfect link has to be “Do Follow,”and It certainly would be nice if that link came from a high PR page and with anchor text that matched the pages content. Finally, it should be in a related business field.
What’s your perfect link?
What say you?
Our Services:
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Why We Don’t Use Non Human Edited Directories
April 26, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Why We Don’t Use Non Human Edited Directories
Using directories to build backlinks to your website was once a very useful website link building practice. If you are not a student of the website marketing community you might still think it is a vital useful tool. Just go to any SEO or webmaster forum and you will see dozens of threads about free directories and submission tools.
Many of us have known for some time that backlinks from directories have been devalued by the search engines for some time now. But like anything questionable in this industry it is best to get Google’s opinion on any subject.The best source of acceptable practices is Google webmaster guidelines.
These guidelines are an SEO bible of sorts. The guidelines offer a very clear picture of what is good website behavior. Until recently, Google only recommended two directories and they are both human edited directories. This should have been a hint that Google no longer values these mostly useless links.
However, in early 2008 Google did recommend the free DMOZ directory and the paid Yahoo directory. This was because they were human edited and appeared to be spam proof. That has changed with Google removing its reference to these directories in late 2008. For us this is a very clear indication that Google does not value directory links.
I have been trying to explain on forums for about a year that Google has devalued directory links. I have meet with fierce resistance until this recent development. It is somewhat amazing how people get certain web based marketing techniques ingrained in their marketing efforts and have a difficult time giving them up. There have been multiple video’s produced by Google representatives on this subject.
What it all boils down to is this. Almost all of the easy links building methods have become obsolete. The reality is that link building has become a much more difficult and time consuming task. This is why we are such a big proponent of creating great content that is worthy of linking too and the use of ethical link building practices.
Are you still using non human edited directory submissions?
What say you?
Our Services:
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Google Offers Groupon Challenge
April 25, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Google Offers Groupon Challenge
First, I should note that Google seems to like Portland, Oregon. This is where Google first ran a promotion last year for its Hotpot reviews service. It is now one of the first cities to Beta test Google’s latest service called Offers.
Google Offers is a shot over the bow of Groupon, livingsocial, and other daily deal sites. As you likely already know Groupon turned down Google’s 6 Billion offer last year. Now, it seems before Groupon can launch its IPO Google has gone on the offensive. This could really impact the planned Groupon IPO in a major way.
You have to ask yourself is Groupon as attractive stock if Google has it directly in its sights? That 6 Billion is looking mighty good to me. Can these other sites survive the onslaught of Google? Will Google push their sites down in the search results and push Offers to the top.
Perhaps, Google will simply use AdWords so that its site appears first when someone searches for Groupon, livingsocial, or searchers for daily deal sites? Right now, Offers is limited to Portland, Oakland/East Bay, or New York City. NYC is broken down into three sections.
I am amazed that Google was able to act so quickly after Groupon rejected their offer. It should be very interesting indeed to watch this all unfold.
What say you?
Our Services:
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
