NYT out JC Penney to the teacher (google)

Posted on February 14, 2011 by gabs
Seo blogs today and over the weekend have gone crazy with the NYT outting of J C Penny as google slapped on a penaly to their rankings..
Your be able to read it here if you haven’t already http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
I’m sat on the fence with this one as I could reports 1,000’s of sites per day but what the hell would I get out of it? NYT got JPC a penalty…
Maybe google should offer me a £1 per site not sticking to the RULZ..
I’m sure google has many honey pots as do I for me and my clients catching what the competitors are up to…
SEL have this backlink profile posted:
This is the real interesting thing to me in why it ranked and also why it did it not get caught and NYT had to give google a tip off?
Firstly the ranking reason is clear, many domains with about 1 link per domain… This of course looks like many people are “voting” hence an increase in the serps..
Secondly “why didn’t google catch it” well in my opinion which many seem to agree with is the google would of but had yet..
Pretty simple… Now of course exposure = a higher chance of getting caught…. so using the above method for low traffic turns you more likely to be never caught but then will you get some ROI, that’s for you to decide…
Anyway the graphs showing that these spikes should be flagging them to google is what is interesting to me and reminds me of a post which I’m going to blog soon and linking and Fibonacci.
I play on the fx market and Fibonacci is one amazing tool to see what us humans think is “natural” and you can map fibonacci to linkage profile, content etc… keep an eye out for that one 😉
ok… Here some good reading on the JCP from today:
http://searchengineland.com
http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/new-york-times-outs-major-us-retailer-for-link-spam/
http://www.seroundtable.com/jc-penney-google-ban-12952.html
Posted in Misc | 2 Comments

You are ready for the new growing online trends?

Posted on January 12, 2011 by gabs

This time last year I posted uk December trends for 2009.. Well worth a read into trends of 3 sites traffic over December 2009 and the effect of Xmas and New Year on traffic http://www.seohome.co.uk/2010/01/05/uk-traffic-trends-for-december-2009/

Well some how another year has passed (don’t ask me how???) and I have some my data to share..

For the first time I’m seeing some interesting results for the 25th December… The news in the UK kept mentioning for the first time that this year  people would be logging on and buy online on xmas day the 25th..

Well this is the first year I’ve seen it happen…

Fig1 below shows some interesting results for 1 site. You can see more traffic came hit this site on the 25th vs the 24th and yes this is the first year I’ve seen this.

Why is this new?

Well the stats below are not a xmas based site OR a site with a boxing day PROMO but the change in the general media (tv news) and mass advertising on TV.

The Week before xmas you couldn’t help but see ads for the likes of argos saying about the sales starting xmas day (mid-night xmas eve) …

fig1 shows overall traffic but the below graphic is only mobile visits.

You will see a massive increase on the 25th.

So did everyone get Ipads for xmas then?

When you drilldown into the mobile devices yes you see a surge in ipad after 25th but also in Iphone’s ipods and of course a drop in blackberry (not many working you see)

So what’s changed and what should you be planing on doing for winter 2011?

From the above stats we can see a growth in online surfing/buying over the festive period vs others years.

We can also see a massive increase in mobile usage over December.

Now may be the time to start planning boxing day sales and getting ranking as the web it taking many off the streets in the uk.

Time to look at what promo your competitors are running.

Plan plan and plan some more..

Posted in internet trends, UK | 8 Comments

Google Place / Maps “We currently do not support the location “

Posted on December 9, 2010 by gabs

Ever seen “We currently do not support the location” Â ??

Well this was driving my round the bend…. Â google bugged out basically for no reason..

I’ve spent a good amount of time trying to find out why and look at the advice given in the forums and FAQ on google which was all a load of crap so I thought I’d blog it to help anyone else seeing the “We currently do not support the location”

Here is the advice that didn’t work for me:

From google

http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=176521

Error Message: We currently do not support this location

The data on Google is always changing as we update and add more listings and details to Google. From time to time, we may need to take some information offline as we update our algorithm. Please try checking your listing periodically when you see this message. You will eventually be able to see your listing display on Google if it does not violate our Google Places quality guidelines.

So google say wait OR you are in violation of the quality guidelines which in turn = useless information (in my case)

OK…

So how did I fix it…

The fix was so simple and all the forums and google FAQ / HELP section don’t seems to off the simple next steps .

Login to your google account >> My account >> Google Places >> Edit (the not supported location listing) >> Â Fix incorrect marker location (its on the right hand side) >> Move the Marker (only a little) >> Save Changes

If this doesn’t work then yep it’s like you either have multi listings makes a mess OR your pushing google to hard and breaking it’s “quality guidelines”

I hope this will help someone as I wish I’d found this before 🙂

Posted in google, google maps | 1 Comment

The google blue arrow in the serps by default

Posted on October 1, 2010 by gabs

After instant google has now added the blue arrow short cut…

What is it ?

Well long long time ago (this is not a song sorry) google created keyboard short cuts in google labs see here:Â http://www.google.com/experimental/ showing up top..

In labs the arrow was black and large..

This morning I was pressing the down arrow on my laptop instead of scrolling looking at some morning serps and the page didn’t move… Then I noticed a blue arrow following the results down the page..

Now the arrow is displayed once your active on the page (clicked on the page or hit enter to exit out of google suggest/instant)

The Blue arrow show on the first result of the page.. Yes the first including Sponsored results…

Screen shot below shows the no1 paid link hi-lighted with 2 other paid links below and 8 down the side. Google orders top 3 PPC ads then natural serps all 10 of them then to the right hand side column of ads..

Take look.

google blue arrow

google blue arrow

To visit the hi-lighted link hit enter. This arrow does really give more of a focus on the top spot and I’m sure the public are going to question like me why isn’t the page scrolling when I press the down arrow..

Posted in google, google UI tests, serps | 2 Comments

Beyond the FOLD! Google instant

Posted on September 13, 2010 by gabs

Google instant = the death of SEO

Google instant = time to give up

Google instant = what the f**k is google doing

Google instant = what about adwords

All the above are what most are moaning talking about… All the above doesn’t matter to much to me.. YES the way people search will change but not much..

When google suggest went live it was a revolution, it channelled people in directions.

On google’s side it helps users by “auto” completing the keyword with a suggestion speeding up searching for common things. Fine I like suggest BUT of course google pushes you in the direction that many others have gone in to find your query which then is pushed on to the adwords advertisers and seo’s alike.

MYÂ BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH GOOGLE INSTANT

Yep I have 1 major problem.. Its the one thing I hate about it… I thought ASK was a bit of a joke by filling the entire serp with ads with the organic listing below the fold.

Ask got a lot of stick for this.. I haven’t read much stick for google doing the same yet but here is my example of one thing I hate about google instant and who choice a user now has…

The screen shot below is what comes up when you type “mens c” into google with google instant enabled.

So what’s the problem.. Well you can’t even see the full #1 organic listing without scrolling/clicking/hitting enter.

This is massive in my opinion, with no REAL choice other than PPC ads the top 3 in the serps are no longer and the top spot isn’t even fully shown… This isn’t a one off term that triggers 3 ppc top ads and a spelling correction.

The organic serps are now beyond the fold with google instant! 🙁

Google instant beyond the fold

Google instant beyond the fold

Posted in google, google UI tests | 4 Comments

google webmaster tools bug

Posted on June 9, 2010 by gabs

barry beat me to blogging this as I’m far to busy so credit to him for picking up on it.

You can see his post here:Â http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022347.html

When he wrote about it the screen grab he had didn’t show this bug so I sent him one from a site of mine.

Here is the drop is click and impression according to google webmaster tools:

And here is a screen shot of traffic:

Bit of a google bug 🙂

Posted in google, Google analytics, google sitemaps / webmaster tools | 2 Comments

Exchange rates now working in google suggest

Posted on June 4, 2010 by gabs

As of today google have updated google suggestion to include the exchange rates..

I so love this as it gives me a fast indication of the current price..

I have one biz that sells in GBP and USD but buys in Euro so I’m always checking prices.

Here is a screen shot..

I am loving this feature 🙂

Posted in google | 2 Comments

Top 1000 sites listed from google/double click

Posted on May 28, 2010 by gabs

Loads of buzz about the double click top 1000 sites today…

You can check it out here:Â http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/

I got some very interesting sites in the top 100 and shows how many of the sites are non US.

VirginMedia over here in the UK is number 1000..

You can see its stats here:Â https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile#siteDetails?identifier=virginmedia.com

So..

How to get into the top 1000 sites, well you need traffic and is not a much as you think..

According to the data on the above page you need..

500,000 to million page impression per day.

700,000 visitors per day (makes no sense regarding the page view but hey)

That’s about its..

So some silly maths..

If you paid google 2p per click with zero natural rankings its would cost you £14,000 per day to make it into the top 1000 🙂

Posted in google, internet trends | Leave a comment

Vancouver 2010 Luge death and google.

Posted on February 13, 2010 by gabs

A sad day for the olympics 2010 with the death of a training session on the luge..

Nodar Kumaritashvili dies after crash which you can read about here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/vancouver_2010/luge/8513595.stm

Google has still got the graphic of the luge on the home page…

I’m not sure if it was linking to “vancouver 2010 luge” before but only links to “vancouver 2010” for now..

Its very sad and google should change the graphic imho…

Posted in google | 1 Comment

PR slap taken back..

Posted on February 8, 2010 by gabs

Not that I really care of follow PR updates much any more but I’ve noticed my PR slap has been removed.. I wonder why..

I don’t promote this blog and never sold a link on it but did put a few links to some test sites I was playing with at the time.. I still have social shop link see bottom right..

Most of my links come from SERT and I’m a mod and don’t do much blogging here so don’t promote in anyway..

Looking at this blog again, I forgot I’d started in 2006 omg I’m getting old LOL..

Anyway my rant over about PR and how and slap can come and go…

Posted in google | 1 Comment