A couple of weeks or so ago there were definitely some changes made to the Google algorithm, Patrick called it a brand update, but I am not so sure that it is just brand sites that have been affected.
The 1st strange thing that I saw was around 3 weeks ago our post that we did about Google maps was ranking ahead of the Google Maps API blog for the phrase Google maps in about 12th position. I stayed there for 2-3 days and then fell down a bunch of pages.
The 2nd strange thing I saw was Search Engine Land ranking on the 1st page of Google.com for the highly competitive term search engine optimization with this post about Google’s search engine optimization presentation. Compared to the other results for that phrase the post had a very small amount of links.
Finally, to top it off the 3rd strange thing that I saw was Shaun Usher’s blog deputy dog ranking on the 1st page of Google.com in the states and Google UK for the phrase porn with this post called ceiling porn. The phrase porn is just unbelievably competitive, many of the pages ranking for that phrase have hundreds of thousands of links pointing at them. In days gone by it would have been impossible to achieve a rank like this with a post that only has less then 1,000 links.
You can see a screenshot of Shaun’s rank on Google.com here. On Friday and Saturday his blog got an extra 2K+ visitors from Google on that phrase alone. The rank fell sometime on Sunday.
So IMO it isn’t just brands that are benefiting from this new algo, SEL might be a brand, but I wouldn’t say deputy dog is and I wouldn’t say this site is. I am not sure how many links the SEL post got but the post on this blog and the one on deputy dog both got a lot of solid blog links in a short space of time so perhaps the algo is just rewarding content that gets a lot of good links fast. In other words maybe anyone can achieve these amazing ranks on Google, it could just be that you need to knock something up that attracts a lot of links, it might be Google’s answer to Yahoo’s Buzz.
Posted in SEO News By David Eaves, a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
July 7th, 2009
Altavista is my favourite tool for checking links and here’s why:
1. It shows more results then any other link checking tool (not including Google webmaster tools, but you can’t check competitors with that) – You can see a maximum of 1,000 separate domains linking to a URL or domain.
2. It only ever shows 2 results from one domain so the results you get don’t get swamped with a couple of site wide links.
3. If your IP address is based in the UK the results show the links with the most juice on Yahoo UK at the top so you can find out which links are helping you most on Yahoo. From the testing that I have done I have seen that generally Yahoo rates the same UK sites Google does – the links that rank high on Altavista’s link command will be from sites with good PageRank.
So there you have it, if you like checking on who’s linking to your site or blog go to Altavista.com and give it a shot.
You can check how many links a page has by searching for link: and then the page URL and you can check how many links a domain has by typing in linkdomain: and then the domain you want to check without the www. Just like on Yahoo site explorer but better.
Posted in Link Building News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
June 19th, 2009
I remember about 3 years ago when you could actually use the allinanchor search command on Google as an SEO tool.
The allinanchor command basically shows you the search results according to links only, so content is not a factor. 3 years ago you could do a regular search and then do an allinanchor and work out things like this website isn’t ranking as high as it should do because it hasn’t got enough anchor text links or it hasn’t got the right keywords in the content.
Unfortunately at sometime around February 2006 the command seemed to stop working. Now I don’t believe Google actually disabled the tool, because if they did I think it just wouldn’t do anything. Allinanchor searches on Google will still bring up results, it is just the vast majority of the time they are no different to the regular results.
I believe the command stopped working because the algorithm changed, on page factors are no where near as important as they used to be and lets face it most of the time when people get a lot of links on something they are optimised on page for it.
So what can you use the allinanchor search command for?
OK so here it is, the allinanchor command is a Google Sandbox detection tool. If you want to get a rough estimate of where a sandboxed site should be ranking according to the links it has then use the allinanchor command.
Here is an example, one of the brand new sites that I am working on KoshCreative.co.uk is currently ranking nowhere in the 1st few hundred results for its main phrase design agency even though it has lots of links with that anchor text. If I do a allinanchor search on Google UK for design agency, I can see the site coming up on page 6 – Link
I believe that the position result is roughly where the site would be ranking according to the links it has if it were not in the sandbox.
With a little testing I think you could make a pretty good Google sandbox detection tool by using this command. If any of you know anyone who could make something like this up for me I might be willing to pay to try it out.
Posted in Search Engine News By David Eaves a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
June 19th, 2009
Thanks to the post that our writer Shaun did about interestingly shaped communities on Google maps there have been many thousands of visitors on this blog in the last week, it went really viral. Altogether the post has had over 67,000 unique visitors and many of them clicked onto the view larger map links to go and see a bigger map on Google.
I ran a report using my premium MyBlogLog account to see how many readers clicked onto the Google.com domain from this blog in the last week and then I ran one to see how many readers came from the Google.com and Google.co.uk domains, here are the results:
- This blog sent Google – 2097 visitors
- Google sent this blog – 1794 visitors
So in a bizarre case of role reversal this week I have sent Google about 15% more traffic then it sent me.
The vast majority of the Google traffic came from Google reader not from search, I wish this blog got that much search traffic.
Posted in SEO News By David Eaves, a UK search engine optimisation specialist.
June 19th, 2009
The introduction of mapping applications such as Google Maps (undoubtedly the most popular example of all) and their subsequent widespread use around the world has resulted in an enormous amount of people taking up an interest in an interactive view of the world which previously was very difficult to obtain. There are millions of incredibly interesting sights to experience which, when living at ground level as we do, are rarely seen in the flesh.
As an example, here are some intriguingly shaped communities which take on a new appearance when viewed from the air, along with those same areas pinpointed in embedded maps. Take a look around.
Trails West, Arizona
Image Credit: © 2009 Alex S. MacLean / Landslides – www.alexmaclean.com
View Larger Map
(Above) To begin, here’s a small mobile home community called Trails West just outside Tuscon, Arizona. The interesting thing about it is the shape as there aren’t many towns or communities with such a distinctly triangular boundary.
Sun City, Arizona
Image Credit: FESPM.es
View Larger Map
(Above) Sun City is a planned retirement community in Arizona which, due to its design and hundreds of identical houses, offers an incredible view on Google Maps. Dozens of tightly knit roads snake around the area and a even form a couple of huge circular neighbourhoods.
Ixtapaluca, Mexico
Image Credit: Aerial Photographs of Mexico City
View Larger Map
(Above) The town of Ixtapaluca in Mexico is full of low-income housing identical to the examples you see in the photo above, resulting in rows and rows of cookie-cutter homes which resemble a cartoon-based community. From above, the area is just as uniform and equally as fascinating.
Bourtange, Netherlands
Image Credit: Vesting Bourtange
View Larger Map
(Above) The beautiful star-shaped village of Bourtange was originally built as a fort in the 1500s, the shape chosen due to its highly effective defensive qualities. Today it houses a village and museum and looks incredibly unique, especially when viewed from the air. There are a few other similarly shaped villages around the world but none as defined as this one.
Harborwalk, Texas
Image Credit: © 2009 Alex S. MacLean / Landslides – www.alexmaclean.com
View Larger Map
(Above) Developers in Galveston decided to build a planned community on the wetlands in Galveston and came up with a strange design where houses sit on rings of land which, from above, resemble concentric ripples on the water. At the moment the town is still under development, hence the numerous gaps where homes should stand.
Palm Islands, Dubai
Image Credit: Dubai Invest
View Larger Map
(Above) The award for Most Eccentrically Shaped Community has to go to Palm Islands in Dubai, an incredibly ambitious project which will, if ever completed following the financial crisis, consist of 3 separate palm tree shaped islands off the coast. Work on the first island began in 2001 and can be seen on Google Maps. The size and scale of the project is astounding.
This post was put together by our writer/blogger Shaun Usher AKA deputy dog. Sorry it’s a little bit off topic but IMO what it lacks in relevance it makes up for in awesomeness.
June 12th, 2009
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