This Week’s Industry News
Compiled By Rocket Clicks Staff
Google Treats Internal 301s To The Homepage Like 404s
In the middle of a Google Hangout, John Mueller revealed a piece of interesting information about Google’s view of internal redirects. If you have a page that 301 redirects to the homepage, rather than a more relevant internal counterpart, Google’s algorithm treats it with as much juice power as it would a 404 link.
Source: YouTube
‘Login With Amazon’ Button Makes Its Debut
It seems like this should’ve happened a long time ago, but Amazon has just launched a login button developers can add to their site to remove a potential barrier to entry (creating an independent account). Zappos has already reported 40% of their new customers have utilized the feature.
Source: Daily Finance
Google Continues To Make Structured Data Markup Easier
Google’s new Structured Data Markup Helper tool now allows webmasters to highlight photos, content, and headers, assign Schema markup, and see the HTML structure as it would look live on-site. The upgrade makes it much easier for people to create this increasingly important tagging system, and makes us wonder when/if Google will ever give its tools awesome, hyperbolic names.
Source: Search Engine Land
SEOmoz Rebrands Itself As ‘Moz,’ Announces New Analytics Tool
SEOmoz is now the Great And Powerful Moz, and so are their analytics tools. In a blog post, Moz CEO Rand Fishkin revealed the company’s new designation as “Moz” to better reflect their shift to a broader focus on marketing as a whole and on software development.
In addition to the rebranding, Fishkin also unveiled Moz Analytics, a more comprehensive data aggregator than its current SEOmoz PRO product. Moz Analytics is available to select PRO subscribers, and the larger swath of invites will go out sometime in the next two to three months.
Source: Marketing Land
Google Adds Bulk Upload Option For Ads, Ad Groups
Google now lets you bulk edit and upload ads and ad groups to AdWords. This is a follow-up to their April launch of a keyword bulk upload feature within the interface.
Source: Search Engine Land
Inject Some Slow Motion And Chariots Of Fire Into Your Next YouTube Video
The new YouTube tool, “slomo,” is just as cool as it sounds.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Matt Cutts Reiterates Google Advertorial Policies
Apparently, Google hasn’t been vocal enough about their disdain for advertorial links that pass PageRank. This was the specific problem (see: February, Interflora) Matt Cutts addressed in a recent YouTube video. While he didn’t say advertorials are forbidden, Cutts did remind webmasters of the importance of clearly marking advertorials “nofollow,” and making that known to users as well.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Facebook Brand Pages: Verified
It seems like a long time coming, but Facebook has recently rolled out a very Twitter-y way of displaying verified business and celebrity pages. Each verified page will now feature a small blue checkmark (see?) next to the main name. Facebook’s verification process remains a general mystery, but it’s likely verified accounts are more valuable in the post Facebook Graph Search world.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Facebook Adds Recent Interaction Targeting To Its Advertising Platform
Facebook advertisers can now target users based on any recent actions they’ve taken on the social network. Although “Liking” a page does not trigger “Action Spec” (unless it’s a page where you’re an admin), it does let you target users that checked into a store on Facebook, or someone that listened to music on Facebook (for example, through posting from Spotify) within the last 14 days.
Source: Marketing Land
Nearly Every Business Uses Social Media, But Not All Consider It Successful
Social Media Examiner’s 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report is now available, and it reveals some interesting industry trends when it comes to social media engagement and Facebook advertising. According to the report, 37% of marketers believe Facebook ads demonstrate value. It also found that 92% of marketers use Facebook, and 98% of marketers use a social media platform in general. Most interesting, the report found a correlation between larger businesses and a positive perception of Facebook’s value.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Ecommerce Conversions And The Power Of Email
According to Monetate’s Ecommerce Quarterly, email registered the highest conversion rate (3.19%) among conversion-driving mediums. Search followed (1.95%), and social (.71%) brought up the rear. Additionally, email users also had the most page views among referrers (9.02), but search produced the most visitors. These findings aren’t necessarily surprising, as email marketing in ecommerce can be easily targeted and focused on deals or promotions.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Google Updates Android Search, Will Add Voice Search To iOS Chrome
Google recently altered its Android Chrome browser, which now integrates search queries in the omnibox and eliminates the long URL string shown in previous versions. Google also granted more browser real estate to websites by removing the top toolbar when you scroll down a page.
Google also announced they will be adding voice search to the Chrome iOS application. The rollout date is unknown, but we’re sure Apple is tickled pink at the development.
Source: Search Engine Land
Yandex Gets Snippety
At a recent conference in Moscow, along with a redesign of its results pages the Russian search engine Yandex announced the incorporation of interactive rich snippets it’s calling “Islands”. They look like mini “apps” that allow users to take the hallowed next step toward conversion, whether it be finding a movie in their neck of Moscow or checking in to a flight on Aeroflot.
Source: Search Engine Land
Facebook Ads: Bigger Means Better…And More Complex
Though not yet available to all Facebook advertisers, the social media giant is rolling out two new related features. The allowed image ad size is being increased, and organizations with a Facebook Page will have the option to post the ads to their News Feeds (and thus to their fans’ News Feeds). With more options comes more complexity, however, as the ad copy can be displayed differently depending on placement.
Source: Search Engine Watch
Notable Commentary
A Deep Dive Into Sites Hit By Penguin 2.0
Glenn Gabe has an excellent piece of research and analysis on sites most affected by Penguin 2.0, and their shared traits. Gabe concludes that anchor text and deep pages were a common theme, as well as a handful of other factors that led to an algorithm penalty.
Analysis By: Glenn Gabe, HMT Web
Penguin 2.0’s Modus Operandi
Now that Penguin 2.0 has been working its magic for more than a week, its wily ways are beginning to come clear to the SEO community. Danny Goodwin compiles findings from several studies of Penguin 2.0 victims and pulls out some of the major signals that Google is using to identify sites with not-so-natural backlink profiles.
Analysis By: Danny Goodwin, Search Engine Watch
How To Hack Thousands Of Seemingly Random Passwords
Ars Technica assembled a “crack” team of password experts to see how difficult it would be for them to break into passwords that are seemingly complex (such as j3rfjf40gnnlv9). The story is somewhat long, but it’s a really fascinating look into language and human indifference.
Analysis By: Dan Goodin, Ars Technica
Five Brands Using Vine And Twitter For Maximum Returns
Many brands and advertisers are still learning the ins and outs of meshing Twitter and Vine together as a cravaeable social medium. However, Search Engine Watch has a list of five brands doing Vine right.
Analysis By: Allison Peltz, Search Engine Watch
Mary Meeker’s 117-Slide Presentation On Internet Trends
From mobile advertising and device adoption to Internet access by country to general behavioral trends, Mary Meeker’s 2013 Internet Trends report is a sight to behold. Click through and enjoy this (valuable) time-waster.
Analysis By: Jason Del Rey, All Things D
PPC Advice In 140 Characters
Who doesn’t love a panel of tweet-friendly PPC advice from digital advertising experts? No one, that’s who.
Analysis By: Lots Of Experts, PPC Chat
When And How To Get Flexible
As we mentioned in last week’s Industry News, AdWords is introducing a “Flexible Bid Strategies” tool for Enhanced Campaigns that makes it possible to utilize advanced bidding algorithms. Justin Fried picks apart the different bid rules, when to use them, and their pros and cons compared to other paid search management tools.
Analysis By: Justin Fried, Search Engine Watch
