Over the weekend webmaster forums were blowing up with talk of major activity and rankings fluctuations. Many were suspicious that another Google update might be brewing. Turns out, they were right. Yesterday Google confirmed two separate spam updates. The first update announced was Panda 4.0 – this is most likely the “softer Panda update” that Matt Cutts was referring to at this year’s SMX West conference.
Lately there’s been a lot of speculation in the SEO community as to whether or not Google will continue to use back-links to rank websites and what metrics may soon replace links as a primary ranking factor. In Google’s latest webmaster video (below) Matt Cutts discusses how Google will value links going forward and how much of a role they will play in search engine rankings.
Three years ago Schema.org was introduced as the preferred structured markup method for webmasters and SEOs, with the goal of providing industry-specific vocabularies for describing various entities on the web.
According to a recent study conducted by Searchmetrics, websites with Schema implementation rank higher by an average of four positions when compared to websites without markup. However, the study also concluded that less than one percent of the world’s websites currently use Schema markup.
Facebook has recently updated their proprietary spam algorithm, in an effort to improve the quality of content that appears in users’ newsfeeds. By now, you’ve probably already heard about Google’s Panda and Penguin penalties, which targeted sites with duplicate and/or thin content and sites using abusive/spammy link building tactics.
According to the New York Times, Starbucks and The Economist recently admitted that they use Google+ for SEO more than social media. “When we think about posting on Google Plus, we think about how [it relates] to our search efforts,” shares Alex Wheeler, vice president of global digital marketing at Starbucks. And Starbucks isn’t the only company reaping the SEO benefits from a building a strong presence on Google+.
