SEO Blog

Thoughts and tips from the expert minds of our team

Twitter Followers new functions

Checkout your followers on Twitter, I was checking out Kevin Rose on Twitter http://twitter.com/kevinrose/following

and I noticed that we have some new Ajax features,

you can easily switch the list to an expanded view which includes the persons last tweet, real name and location

If you are following the same people you can send a direct message or unfollow .. so I could send a message to Matt Cutts since I follow him as well as Kevin Rose.

Dave

Google Maps wrong again

This time it’s in the site links, hat tip to Tony at City Visitor for sending me the data.

Tony asked me why this page driving lessons in hull would cause Google to show US Maps under neither there listing in Google organic ..

So I did this search in Google.co.uk

google-search

and sure enough Google presented me first off with a Google Map of the UK but then the city visitor URL had a US link:

driving-lessons-in-hullwhen clicked:

driving-lessons-in-hull-map

Is this another bad data push? I found a lot more US maps appearing on UK local search terms where the US and UK have the same names like Manchester etc

Dave

Google Update Vince hits the UK shores

I guess most SEO’s will have been happily preparing for this day to come and if you haven’t don’t worry too much I’m sure you’ll figure it out. For the past few months we have seen I guess what can only be called a non-geo vince data ( btw vince or brand update take your pick) appearing in the UK Serps. At least they gave us a heads up this time.

So how will it make our jobs easier? In the past if you wanted to rank it was necessary to land grab has many links has possible and have good OPIC score. Well Google seems to be now allowing “authority websites” to rank top for high value keyterms that aren’t in their backlink profiles or at least not a major %. Any ways I was chatting to Greg Boser a few months back and we are in agreement that now is the time to shine in the SEO world as crappy link builders and low quality links will fall by the wayside and drag a few sites down I’m sure.

So the million dollar questions .. how do you

a) Become Brand

b) Become Authority

c) tell Google that you are an authority brand ;)

well tbh I have given enough clues recently on external interviews and on webmaster radio.. so you work it out ;)  haha

DaveN

Michael Jackson tickets on eBay

It would seem that eBay users have drawn the short straw again with the announcement of Michael Jacksons unfortunate death yesterday. Anyone who bought a ticket directly from the Booking Line will be pleased to know they should expect to get a full refund onto the card they originally purchased with.

However for those desperate souls who bought there ticket via eBay or through a private seller will be “thrilled” to know they are now potentially out of pocket! They will probably struggle to get refunds from Auction Sellers or whomever they originally purchased from.

So in essence if you sold a bunch of tickets on eBay - I’d go out and have a beer tonight  because your about to get them all refunded and make a packet more. Unless your going to be nice and refund everyone.

If you bought through eBay I’d try not to loose too much sleep over it - rather next time you book to go to a concert go direct and save yourself a bunch on the ticket.

Either way - I could be wrong eBay may try to push through refunds, but I doubt it. That would be too much like hard work.

Cheers,

Anthony

Blog Comments

You may have noticed we’ve recently changed the layout of comments on the Blog - some of you may now be lucky enough to have a clean, followed link from our blog to your site.

If your URL is Green - congratulations you’ve earned a link from us by taking part in our community, otherwise your URL will be a completely unlinked in a grey colour.

We have written a custom Wordpress Plugin so we can reward those who participate on the site more. In order to obtain a link you will need to have made a minimum of 10 comments (subject to change). Once you’ve reached this threshold your site will also be given an Editorial Review if your site is deemed link worthy, you will get links on all earlier posts. Our decision on whether your site is link worthy is final.

So happy commenting :)

Cheers,
Anthony - Follow me on Twitter!

Should I include my logo text using ‘alt’ or CSS?

please watch this video first :

now read this post :

Replacing H1 tags with Images .. ok

now the way that Matt laughed about CSS replacement made me feel uneasy, so I pinged  Joost de Valk on instant messenger and he pointed out this google webmastercentral post which cleary shows Google replacing it’s logo with text. they even say

“Google search result with CSS disabled (”Google” sprited image lost, descriptive “Google” link remains)”

so who is right Matt Cutts or webmaster blog, because at the moment I feel very conflicting advice.

Dave

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