Blogstorm

So the web spam team at Google have finally pulled their finger out and unleashed a world of hurt on link spammers with Penguin 2.0. I was in two minds when thinking about putting this post together, a) because it’s too early to fully understand the impact, and b) I didn’t want to regurgitate the same thing as everybody else out there.

If you have been living on a desert island for the past two years and know nothing about Penguin, you can read up on it here and here. The main takeaways:

1 – The new version of Penguin is more aggressive

2 – It targets lower level pages of a site and not just the top level.

You might want to watch this again as well:

What I really wanted to do was go over some of the trends we are seeing, and what you can do if you are being badly affected by the updates.

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Have you ever seen this message in your Google webmaster tools?

If you have, you’ll know about the panic that ensues. Maybe you know you’ve done some link-building in the past that’s outside of Google’s guidelines, or perhaps you hired an SEO firm which wasn’t honest with their link-building tactics.

Either way, these links have to come down.

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We’ve talked before about link devaluation and from what we can see the pattern is still going strong five months later. Pretty much every week since the end of November, Google has devalued large numbers of links of one type or another resulting in brands losing positions gradually week after week for months.

One of the biggest devaluations Google has done was last week, shortly after Matt Cutts tweeted about taking action on a major link seller network.

In fact, we took action on several thousand linksellers in a paid-link-that-passes-PageRank network earlier today.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 15, 2013

Searchmetrics has not updated this week yet but when it does you will see lots of sites taking a big decline, we tend to monitor dozens of sites every week that we have noticed to have a spammy link profile but that were not hit by any penalties in the past year or so. Loads of these were wiped out at the end of last week by link devaluation.

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From time to time, members of the SEO community will publicly ask: “does X tactic still work?”

Cue people from all ends of the colour spectrum (that’s black to white) throwing their hat into the ring and proclaiming that Google has no right to do this; they’re still getting results from that; they expect everything to be less valuable in future and you should be on Google+ just to be safe, like that little red +1 on your website’s door will make Penguin walk on by like some sort of SEO Passover.

The question that gets asked far too rarely is: “should this tactic still work?” and, in the case of press releases, I’m not sure that answer is in the affirmative.

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As a Data Analyst with my own blog; naturally, I’m always intrigued to check out some of the keywords that bring people to my site.

Focusing on video games, my blog attracts some pretty random keywords, take a look at this one I found the other day:

So, I decided to check it out for myself. By using the Google image tracking filter AJ Kohn wrote about, I was able to tell this came from image search. So before long, I was searching for photos of ‘pretty emo boys’ to see what image was ranking.

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You can now book your place at Branded3’s next SEO & Digital Seminar in London, encompassing talks from Patrick Altoft, Tim Grice, Branded3’s experts and two guest speakers.

With 10 expert sessions covering the latest advice in SEO & Digital Marketing, our 10 Digital Secrets Seminar on Tuesday 11^th June is guaranteed to equip in-house marketers with the latest tips for successful strategies.

We all know that the click through rate on the search results declines pretty quickly the lower you rank on the page but most of the CTR studies have not really looked at different devices. With the rise of tablets and the fact that by the end of this year there will be around 200m iPads in existance we can’t ignore how Google displays results on these devices.

Have a look at the screenshot below for an average commercial query and notice how Google only shows one full organic result above the fold and just the title of the next one. This screenshot isn’t trimmed down, that’s the full visible screen. I’m sure people scroll on tablets and it’s easy to do that but Google really needs to get a grip of themselves and remember that adverts are not content.

It’s been just over two years now since Panda was unleashed on the UK and it seems that a lot of sites are still struggling to figure out how to recover from the effects of what is perhaps the most important algorithm Google has ever developed.

Panda heralded the start of Google using artificial intelligence to penalise websites that exhibited signals of being a low quality site and is no doubt the first of many similar algorithms that will be run over the years, Penguin being another key one.

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If you’re heading to Internet World next week, be sure to catch our Director of Search Patrick Altoft and Head of Search Tim Grice delivering expert talks on future-proofing search strategies, e-commerce SEO and integrating social media with SEO.

The free event is the largest online and digital conference in the UK, offering an extensive free seminar programme over the three days it runs, boasting talks from some of the country’s best online marketers.

You can find Patrick in the Social Media World Theatre on the first day, Tuesday 23rd April at 1:45pm where he’ll be delivering a talk on using SEO to justify investment in social media channels.

Just a little while later on the same day, head to the Search, Advertising & Affiliate Theatre at 3pm where Patrick will be telling delegates how to future-proof their SEO strategies. This presentation is not to be missed if you’ve been affected by Google’s recent algorithm updates and need advice on how to prepare for the next one.

Fresh from delivering an expert penalty recovery workshop at Brighton SEO, Tim Grice will be presenting in the Search, Advertising & Affiliate Theatre on Wednesday 24th April at 1:30pm.

Tackling the tough issue of SEO for e-commerce websites, Tim will be covering best practice for ensuring online retailers can stay ahead of the game, regardless of the amount of products they sell.

Here’s a summary of where you can find Patrick and Tim talking during the event:

• Tuesday 23rd April, 1:45pm, Social Media World Theatre: Using SEO to Justify Investment in Social Media Channels – Patrick Altoft
• Tuesday 23rd April, 3pm, Search, Advertising & Affiliate Theatre: Future-proofing SEO Strategies – Patrick Altoft
• Wednesday 24th April, 1:30pm, Search, Advertising & Affiliate Theatre: SEO for Ecommerce Websites – Tim Grice

If you can’t make Internet World this year, check out Branded3′s slideshare the week after the event to view Patrick and Tim’s presentation slides and keep an eye on our conferences page for details of where we’re speaking next.

See you there!

The weather forecast is looking good and the brightest and best SEO’s are flocking to the beach this Friday for Brighton SEO – an expert one-day search marketing conference held in, er, Brighton!

Our Digital PR Specialist Laura and myself will be there on Friday to take full advantage of the seminar programme, which is bursting with the latest search knowledge and tips.

If you’re heading to the event too, drop me and Laura a tweet to say hi and arrange a chat, our handles are @Felicity_Rose_ and @LauraCrimmons.

Our Head of Search Tim Grice is heading down a day early to run a penalty recovery workshop tomorrow.

The workshop focuses on helping online marketers understand exactly what an unnatural link is and how to prepare SEO strategies against further updates.

It’s now completely sold out but you can still see Tim talk on Friday morning in the Dome Studio Theatre at 10am.

You can also catch Tim speaking at Internet World later this month and keep an eye on our seminars page to see him and Patrick Altoft talk in June.

If you can’t make the event this week, be sure to follow me and Laura on Twitter for updates during the day.

In case you couldn’t make it, you can now watch the videos of our Director of Search, Patrick Altoft and Head of Search, Tim Grice speaking at the TFM&A event earlier this year.

This annual event is a must-attend for marketing and advertising professionals and enthusiasts and 2013′s show certainly didn’t disappoint. The show boasted over 100 free seminar sessions over the two days with an impressive line-up of speakers.

Branded3 sponsored the Search Marketing theatre which saw our SEO expert Tim Grice step up to the presentation stand on the first day. Tim’s talk delved into how brands and e-commerce sites can position themselves to take advantage of future Google updates and deliver long-term sustainable rankings. Check out the video of Tim’s talk below:

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Head over to Branded3′s Google+ page to get involved with Brunch with Branded3 this Friday, an expert Google+ Hangout with our Director of Search Patrick Altoft.

Patrick will be focusing on the latest Google algorithm updates, giving his thoughts and advice on how best to adapt for them and how to future-proof your strategies.

All you need to do to get involved is follow Branded3 on Google+ and head there at 11:30am (BST) on Friday 5th April where you’ll be able to watch the session and ask your question live.

If you’re one of the first nine participants and you have a webcam, you’ll be able to join in the discussion with Patrick, but don’t worry if you’re not – because you can still watch the Hangout live on our Google+ page and leave your questions for Patrick in the comments section.

So grab a fresh cup of coffee, a morning muffin and join us for brunch at 11:30am this Friday. See you there!