Clay Cazier

Worried About Google’s “Penguin” Update?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Clay Cazier

Starting April 24th, Google started rolling out an update focused on penalizing websites that are “over-optimized”. This has been expected for some time, as Google’s Head of Webspam, Matt Cutts, forewarned of this penalty in a March 2012 SXSW presentation. As has been the habit lately, Google has given this update a handy nickname, “Penguin”. What is Google Penguin and how can penalized sites recover?

Generally speaking, Google’s “Penguin” release is a change in their algorithm aimed at penalizing the rankings of sites violating Google’s existing Quality Guidelines. Violations specifically mentioned include keyword stuffing, article spinning and dubious linking habits like participation in reciprocal or paid link networks. In Google’s official Penguin release, Google goes on to point out that, downstream, this change will only impact around 3% of total, US queries – they’re looking for the worst of the worst offenders. (Compare this to the 35% change that last year’s QDF update brought to bear.)

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Posted in Google, Natural Search, Online Marketing, SEO | 1 Comment

Getting Around “Keyword Not Available”

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Clay Cazier

In a previous article on Keyword Not Available, we explored the impact of Google’s decision to encrypt searches performed by logged-in Google users. With this change, SEO keyword referrer information is becoming scarce, with webmasters reporting between 12 and 30%+ of their Google organic keyword traffic being suddenly unavailable. Google Webmaster Tools is one way “around” this by providing site owners with the top keyword queries driving traffic to the site, regardless of the user’s logged in status. On April 26th, Google announced that they were including more data in Google Webmaster Tools’ Top Search Queries report. Yea! Although the keyword data doesn’t allow you to slice and dice it like Analytics would, the Top Search Queries report can help establish keyword trends for comparison to Analytics’ “keyword not available” data.

Posted in Google, Natural Search, SEO, Web Analytics | Leave a comment

Keyword Not Available?!

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Clay Cazier

Since 4Q2011, clients’ site analytics have shown an increasing number of Google organic searches with “(not provided)” listed as the referring keyword. The cause is Google’s use of SSL (encrypted) search for personalized results. Let’s talk about the meaning, impact and future of this change.

What is SSL search?

In October 2011, Google announced that it was automatically redirecting signed-in users to the https version of the Google search site. All search traffic sent through this URL will be encrypted via SSL as it leaves the searcher’s browser and goes through their router to their ISP, Google and then on to Google’s recommended websites. The primary reason is to protect the privacy of users’ searches if they are conducted via unsecure WiFi or public networks. I would offer two other possible reasons for this move: i) limiting liability; and ii) enhance the value proposition of PPC.

Limiting liability – organizations in both the US and EU have challenged Google’s privacy policies, particularly data sharing and user protection elements. While I’m not a lawyer, I can imagine Google’s liability would be significantly reduced if they encrypt search data for signed in users – users who have, further, agreed to terms of service that can dictate additional protections for Google. Is this speculation? Absolutely… but, for Google, winning at this level means focusing on lawsuits and fighting patent disputes, not brand development through feel-good open data policies.

Value proposition of PPC – if we view websites participating in Google’s AdWords & AdSense networks as legally-contracted extensions of Google, we could hypothesize that this could provide the legal protection needed to allow Google to continue to offer keyword level data to participants. Happily for Google, this also enhances the value proposition of participation in those PPC networks, as it will become the best way to get keyword level data. (Google Webmaster Central still shows the search terms people used to reach your site over the past 30 days but it is not as integrated as PPC data is or would be.)

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Posted in Search Marketing | 1 Comment

Surviving Google’s “Panda” Updates

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Clay Cazier

A hot topic at SES New York 2012 was Google’s series of “Panda” updates and what they have done to site owners’ traffic. While we had only 20 minutes to discuss a year’s worth of updates, the theater presentation went well and appeared to help a few people get a handle on the past and future of these changes. For our readers, I’ve uploaded a PDF copy of the presentation for review and comment.

The core idea is that low quality content is being carefully inspected and, if you go over a certain threshold, your entire site can be penalized. There are ways out of the Panda hole but what do you think, generally, about this series of updates? Has Panda hit your site? Is it helpful to retailers or harmful?

Posted in Google, Natural Search | Leave a comment

Duplicate Content Roundtable – SES New York 2012

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Clay Cazier

PM Digital’s Directors are often asked to speak at retail and SEO industry events. This year, I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to co-host two roundtable discussions at SES New York 2012 on March 20 and 21st that focus on duplicate content. In each of these hour-long sessions, conference attendees are invited to sit with people like me and talk shop about their experiences and ask for advice on how to move forward.

To leave roundtable participants with a tangible result of our conversation, I produced a one page PDF summary of the duplicate content discussion summarizing the major causes and “fixes” for duplicate content. Of course, this doesn’t convey all details of our spirited discussions but my hope is that it will serve as a quick reminder of the top issues surrounding content duplication. Please take a look and drop a comment if you have any questions!

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Mobile SEO – What Is It, Really? – Part II

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Clay Cazier

On-Page Optimization

As we move forward, Google’s Fast, Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh mantra hangs in my mind as does an October 2011 post by Ryan Jones named Mobile SEO is a Myth. Although Jones goes to the extreme of arguing that a mobile site should be one and the same as your normal retail site, there are a few good points worth considering, including how mobile devices are just a mechanism for delivering a good web experience. Would you rate a TV show differently depending on the size of the TV used to display that show? I don’t think it’s true that the “…best Mobile SEO strategy is to not have a mobile SEO strategy…” but the thought ties in perfectly with Huffman’s point about how they judge the quality of Google’s own Mobile Search and “normal” Web Search sites using the same criteria: Fast, Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh.

Fast is a technical point previously addressed. When we consider the Relevant, Comprehensive and Fresh requirements, fundamentals like content development and on-page optimization (TITLE, META tags, etc.) necessarily join the checklist of things that must be included in “Mobile SEO”, proper.

A second thought stemming from Huffman’s presentation is that they hope Google Search for Mobile delivers a “complete” experience for users. He gives examples of “complete” as i) inclusive of as much information as possible; and ii) information being presented in ways that are sensitive to the capabilities of access devices. Simplistically interpreted, this means mobile site owners should generally avoid things like Flash while leaning toward features created by HTML5 or jQuery – both of which provide more functionality within a device like an iPhone or Blackberry. Continue reading →

Posted in Mobile Marketing, Natural Search, SEO | 1 Comment

Mobile SEO – What Is It, Really? – Part I

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Clay Cazier

In listening to current and prospective PM Digital clients, the importance of mobile website development to the future of their businesses is a given but “mobile SEO” is sometimes mentioned with some hesitation. What is it, really? Meaning, when you’re challenged with increasing traffic and other KPIs delivered by your mobile site, what tactics are included in the solution set? What Is Mobile SEO?

First, let’s establish the near-term goal – improvement of your site’s page rankings for top keyphrases searched through Google. Specifically, we’re interested in improving page rankings for top keywords entered by mobile device users and returned via Google Search for Mobile. (Also consider YouTube and other major social sites to be worthy of individual, mobile keyword research and optimization.) Looking forward to farther-reaching goals and KPIs, let’s agree that we’ll save the advanced discussion of mobile conversion optimization for another day and set rankings, traffic and revenue as a good, default three KPIs.

With the appropriate keywords and target site(s) defined, let’s look to Google for advice on what should comprise “Mobile SEO”.

Technical Optimization

Starting in late 2009, Google’s Webmaster Central Blog began offering the basics of what they like to see in mobile websites, what we’ll call technical optimization:

  • Help Google index your mobile site, November 13, 2009 – i) “…create a Mobile Sitemap and submit it to Google to inform us to the site’s existence…”; ii) “…If you’d like your site crawled, please allow any User-agent including ‘Googlebot-Mobile’ to access your site…”; iii) “…Check that your mobile-friendly URLs’ DTD declaration is in an appropriate mobile format such as XHTML Mobile or Compact HTML…”

    • Continue reading →

Posted in Mobile Marketing, Natural Search, SEO | Comments Off

2012 – Time to Join the PM Digital Blog

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Clay Cazier

It’s mid-January and, by this time, we’ve all gotten back to work and are focused on the good things we’d like to accomplish in the new year. As Senior Director, Search Strategy, I joined PM Digital in 2011 and got to work on client strategy, best practices and revenue goals but hope to make participation on the PM Digital blog a habit in 2012. Consider this a friendly “Hello!” and my resolution to contribute posts on marketing best practices, breaking news and revenue development as the year progresses.

We’re compiling aggregate KPI data across many verticals right now, so it’s time to make a wish list of tactics and theories analytically prove or disprove. Are there any SEO, PPC, social media or general marketing issues you’d like to see addressed in future posts?

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