Backlinks.com: The Next Link Network Penalized By Google

Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, publicly outed onTwitter another link network that Google has penalized. Matt Cutts' new trend is the share a link from the marketing material of the link network and then add a word or two to say the opposite, that Google caught you.

This came a week, literally a week, after Google outed Anglo Rank.

In fact, Matt joked on Twitter that Google "should start taking requests for which link networks to tackle next."

Meanwhile, the folks at Black Hat World are not happy for a few reasons. One said, "It's crazy how he can get away with ruining businesses. It's not like spamming the internet's illegal and Google doesn't own the internet." Well, it is spamming Google and I guess Google has the right to fight back?

That being said, guys - stop buying links unless you want to play the crash and burn game.

I received an email from someone who got one of these link penalties but swore they never paid for links. They did and found out their SEO company did for them.

Be careful and don't mess your 10 year old web site up with these schemes.

Google Busts Yet Another Link Network: Anglo Rank

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, just confirmed on Twitter that Google has targeted another “private link network” – this one is named Anglo Rank.

Matt’s tweet was pretty direct, he wrote:

“There are absolutely NO footprints linking the websites together” Oh, Anglo Rank.

That is a quote directly from Anglo Rank’s marketing material, and a dig from Cutts suggesting that indeed, Google was able to spot sites in the network.

In response, Search Engine Land’s editor-in-chief Matt McGee suggested on Twitter that those in the network were likely to find that it was “torched.” Cutts responded by saying “messages can take a few days to show up in [Google Webmaster Tools], so timing of when to post can be tricky to predict.”

In other words — yes, Cutts confirmed that Anglo Rank was penalized, and that those involved with it were getting penalty notifications, and since those were finally starting to appear in Google Webmaster Tools, Cutts felt it was OK to finally go more public with a tweet.

Matt Cutts Talks Content Stitching In New Video

Google has a new Webmaster Help video out about content that takes text from other sources. Specifically, Matt Cutts responds to this question:

Hi Matt, can a site still do well in Google if I copy only a small portion of content from different websites and create my own article by combining it all, considering I will mention the source of that content (by giving their URLs in the article)?

“Yahoo especially used to really hate this particular technique,” says Cutts. “They called it ‘stitching’. If it was like two or three sentences from one article, and two or three sentences from another article, and two or three sentences from another article, they really considered that spam. If all you’re doing is just taking quotes from everybody else, that’s probably not a lot of added value. So I would really ask yourself: are you doing this automatically? Why are you doing this? Why? People don’t just like to watch a clip show on TV. They like to see original content.”

Google Page Rank Update December 2013

I am little surprised that In tweet, Matt Cutts has mentioned that there will no pagerank update in 2013. And still there is an update on date 6th december,2013.

So, enjoy this update if you get good PR and if not then try your best to get high pr in next update.

Google has begun pushing out new PageRank values to the Google Toolbar today. This would make the Last Toolbar PageRank update of 2013.

Normally Google updates PageRank values in the Google Toolbar every 3 months or so. The previous update was in Feb. 2013 and before that in November 2012.

Despite PageRank still being part of the algorithm, SEOs know that toolbar PageRank is often outdated and not that useful. In addition, there are many other factors part of the algorithm that may or may not be as important as PageRank.

Even though, I hope your PageRank values increased and did not decline.

Google PR is very important for sites and blogs. Google PR basically ranks a page on the basis of its backlinks and how authoritative that link is. And high Google PR may boost ranking of the site.

8 WAYS TO USE SEARCH OPERATORS FOR LINK BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Every SEO knows that links are an important factor for ranking. Google algorithm changes have made link acquisition more difficult with every update. At one point in time, article directories, directories, web 2.0, and even paid links were link building tactics that actually worked; however those days are long gone now. With social metrics and Google even cracking down on guest posting, link acquisition  has become more about the quality of the content and relationship building. The first step to building a relationship is understanding how to find the right people to build a relationship with. With that in mind, here are 8 ways to use search operators for link building building relationships.

1. ‘keyword’ + inurl:write for us While guest posting seems to be a dying breed, there are still effective ways to go about it. One way is by leaving out your author byline and submitting it as an article. Many publishers are more than happy to do this for you in exchange for quality content.
2. ‘keyword’ + intitle:write for us This will serve the same purpose as tactic #1, however, sometimes the url doesn’t always have the exact keywords in it, so sometimes you can find more relationship opportunities by using the title as well.
3. ‘keyword’ + intitle:Google+ Many people under-utilize Google+ in their link building strategies. This can be one of the most effective ways to find authoritative writers in your industry. Use Google+ to build a strong social following. When you share content, others will share it as well which will not only send your content social signals, but also encourage others to link to it as well.
4. ‘keyword’ + site:https://plus.google.com #3 will pull up Google+ profiles and articles written with Google+ in the title, but this method will literally only pull up Google+ profiles (businesses and personal).
5. ‘keyword’ + inanchor:”submit site” This is a method for finding niche directories. While you have to be careful with directory submission tactics, niche directories are still valuable to your link building campaign. Just whatever you do, carefully review the site to make sure it is moderated before submitting the link.

Google's Search Algorithm Is Not Dictated By Their Patents

Every now and then I see a thread in the discussion forums come up talking about a patent being awarded to Google. The most recent is a thread at Black Hat World where the SEO tells webmasters to keep their heads up in preparation for something big.

The thread cites a post from SEO By The Sea that talks about how Google was awarded a patent for Systems and methods for detecting hidden text and hidden links.

Heads up on that?

Even without a patent, you don't think Google had something in place for detecting hidden text and links? It is in their Google guidelines and there have been penalties for these things for years.

Google's Matt Cutts told us before that patents do not specifically dictate what is in the algorithm. They may have patents written well after the concept is in the algorithm. They may have patents written and awarded that are never used in the algorithm. Patents have no direct influence on the algorithms.

Of course, patents are fun and interesting to read.

Here is a video from Matt Cutts on the misconception of patents:

Smartphone Crawl Errors Added To Google Webmaster Tools

Google announced last night a new feature within Google Webmaster Tools specific for tracking crawl errors on smartphones.

There is now a new filter within the crawl errors section of Google Webmaster Tools for Smartphone errors.

Pierre Far, who is the face of Google for smartphone webmaster topics, shared onGoogle+ that what is provided in this report are the "common mistakes we see in smartphone-optimized sites." Now only do these errors hurt your "site's user experience" Pierre said they can "affect your site's ranking."

Here is a screen shot of the new filter in crawl errors within Webmaster Tools for Smartphone errors:

Some of the errors we share include:

• Server errors: A server error is when Googlebot got an HTTP error status code when it crawled the page.

Google Seeking Feature Requests For Webmaster Tools

Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts posted on his personal blog a request for webmasters to provide feedback and feature requests for Google Webmaster Tools. Matt and the Google search quality team is looking for new ideas on what would make Google Webmaster Tools more useful to you. Matt talked about how far Webmaster Tools has come but they want to continue to make it more useful.
To submit feedback, go to Matt’s blog and leave your feedback.
Matt’s disclaimer:

To be clear, this is just some personal brainstorming–I’m not saying that the Webmaster Tools team will work on any of these. What I’d really like to hear is what you would like to see in 2014, either in Webmaster Tools or from the larger team that works with webmasters and site owners.

8 Reasons To Use The Google Disavow Tool By Matt Cutts

8 Reasons To Use The Google Disavow Tool By Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts posted a video answering the question "Should I use the disavow tool even if there's not a manual action on my site?"

The short answer is yes. But when?

Matt Cutts offers 8 times when to use the disavow tool. They include:

(1) When you get a manual action, of course.

(2) Webmasters won't remove the bad links to your site or want to charge you to remove them.

(3) You are worried about negative SEO.

(4) You see links pointing to your site you do not want to be associated with.

(5) You saw a link bomb attack and are afraid it might hurt your site.

(6) You are afraid someone will submit a spam report about you.

Matt Cutts Discusses Duplicate Meta Descriptions

Google has released a new Webmaster Help video featuring Matt Cutts talking about duplicate and unique meta descriptions.

Cutts answers this submitted question:

Is it necessary for each single page within my website to have a unique metatag description?

"The way I would think of it is, you can either have a unique metatag description, or you can choose to have no metatag description, but I wouldn’t have duplicate metatag description[s],” Cutts says. “In fact, if you register and verify your site in our free Google Webmaster Tools console, we will tell you if we see duplicate metatag descriptions, so that is something that I would avoid.”

Google's Matt Cutts: Using Keyword Rich Words As Your Comment Name Can Be Spam

As someone who manages a content site with comments, there are things that bother me with some comments I get here. I dislike it when I see comments from people but they use their company name and/or keyword rich anchor text. I know the name hyperlinks to your site, but the links do not count - so it looks (1) spammy and (2) that you don't know SEO because the links don't count anyway.

That being said, Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, published a video yesterday telling webmasters who leave comments to "worry about" two types of comments:

(1) Using keyword rich anchor text or your company name, as opposed to your real personal name when commenting.

(2) Using commenting as your primary link building strategy.

If you are doing these, then Google may consider it a link scheme and may take action.

Here is the video:

Will this video reduce the number of comments I get that look like these below? I doubt it:

Easier recovery for hacked sites

We know that as a site owner, discovering your site is hacked with spam or malware is stressful, and trying to clean it up under a time constraint can be very challenging. We’ve been working to make recovery even easier and streamline the cleaning process — we notify webmasters when the software they’re running on their site is out of date, and we’ve set up a dedicated help portal for hacked sites with detailed articles explaining each step of the process to recovery, including videos.
Today, we’re happy to introduce a new feature in Webmaster Tools called Security Issues.
As a verified site owner, you’ll be able to:

• Find more information about the security issues on your site, in one place.
• Pinpoint the problem faster with detailed code snippets.
• Request review for all issues in one go through the new simpified process.

Find more information about the security issues on your site, in one place
Now, when we’ve detected your site may have been hacked with spam or with malware, we’ll show you everything in the same place for easy reference. Information that was previously available in the Malware section of Webmaster Tools, as well as new information about spam inserted by hackers, is now available in Security Issues. On the Security Issues main page, you’ll see the type of hacking, sample URLs if available, and the date when we last detected the issue.

Pinpoint the problem faster with detailed code snippets
Whenever possible, we’ll try to show you HTML and JavaScript code snippets from the hacked URLs and list recommended actions to help you clean up the specific type of hacking we’ve identified.

Google Offers Webmasters New SEO Advice Video

Google has put out a new video of SEO advice from Developer Programs Tech Lead, Maile Ohye. She discusses how to build an organic search strategy for your company.

“What’s a good way to integrate your company’s various online components, such as the website, blog, or YouTube channel? Perhaps we can help!” she says in a blog post about the video. “In under fifteen minutes, I outline a strategic approach to SEO for a mock company, Webmaster Central, where I pretend to be the SEO managing the Webmaster Central Blog.”

Specifically, she discusses: understanding searcher persona workflow, determining company and site goals, auditing your site to best reach your audience, execution, and making improvements.

The video covers these high-level topics (and you can skip to the exact portion of the video that might be of interest):

Image Mismatch: The Latest Google Webmaster Tools Manual Action Penalty

Google has a new manual action penalty within their guidelines named image mismatch.

Image mismatch is when the images on your website do not match what is shown in the Google search results. Google words it as “your site’s images may be displaying differently on Google’s search results pages than they are when viewed on your site.” It is when you are serving Google one image and the user another image, also known as a form of cloaking – but Google doesn’t call it cloaking in their document.

This morning, I covered the first manual action publicly received for this image mismatch notification at the Search Engine Roundtable. I posted this screen shot of the notification of the action:

Infographic: How To Troubleshoot Google Authorship Issues, A Step-By-Step Flowchart

In October, I spoke at SMX East about some of the opportunities and challenges when implementing Google Authorship. At about the same time, a good friend of mine reached out to me with her authorship issue. While she appeared to have authorship markup set up correctly on her blog and linked correctly from Google+, her author image wasn’t appearing in SERPs — but did show for others writing on her blog. She’s not the first person to reach out to me with an issue like this.

Authorship setup can be confusing at best, and even when you think you have everything set up correctly, you still may not see your author image. What gives? It turns out that the author image itself can have an effect on whether your authorship snippet is displayed. In the case of my friend, her photo was a close up photo of her face, but it did not show her full face.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

Google prefers to show a full face with the author image, so don’t get too artsy with your selfie! When my friend changed her Google+ profile image to a full-face picture like the one on the right, her authorship snippet began showing.

My friend’s problem, and the problems I’ve seen others face with authorship, inspired me to create the handy flowchart below to help you troubleshoot what may be the issue.  Google also provides a few key points to troubleshoot authorship issues. (View a larger size flowchart here. Download and Embed Codes for the flowchart are available at the end of article. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Matt Cutts Talks Responsive Design Impact On SEO

Google has put out a new Wembaster Help video. In this one, Matt Cutts discusses responsive design and its impact (or lack thereof) on SEO. He takes on the question:

Does a site leveraging responsive design “lose” any SEO benefit compared to a more traditional m. site?

Cutts says, “Whenever you have a site that can work well for regular browsers on the desktop as well as mobile phones, there’s a couple completely valid ways to do it. One is called responsive design, and responsive design just means that the page works totally fine whether you access that URL with a desktop browser or whether you access that URL with a mobile browser. Things will rescale, you know, the page size will be taken into account, and everything works fine. Another way to do it is, depending on the user agent that’s coming, you could do a redirect so that a mobile phone – a mobile smartphone, for example – might get redirected to a mobile dot version of your page, and that’s totally fine as well.”

Google Webmaster Tools Adds “Security Issues” Section

Google has announced the addition of a new section within Webmaster Tools named “Security Issues.” This new section is aimed at better communicating to website owners security issues, such as site hacks, malware, and so on and then giving a more detailed and concise method of fixing the problem and submitting a review request.

In the new security issues section, you’ll be able to:

• Find more information about the security issues on your site, in one place.
• Pinpoint the problem faster with detailed code snippets.
• Request review for all issues in one go through the new simpified process.

Find More Information:

You’ll be able to see all sorts of security issues that may be on your site, including malware code injection, error template injection, SQL injection, content injection for spam and much more.

Here is a screen shot of some of these security issues as seen in Webmaster Tools:

Matt Cutts On Creating More Content For Better Google Rankings

You may think that having more webpages increases your chances of getting better Google rankings. Well, you might be right. Kind of.

This is the topic of the latest Google Webmaster Help video from Matt Cutts.

“I wouldn’t assume that just because you have a large number of indexed pages that you’ll automatically get a higher ranking,” Cutts explains. ” That’s not the case. It is the case that if you have more pages that have different keywords on them, then you have the opportunity where they might be able to rank for the individual queries that a user has. But just having more pages doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll be in good shape or that you’ll get some sort of ranking boost.”

Google Removes Your Manual Penalty But Your Rankings Won't Improve

I see threads like this Google Webmaster Help thread all the time. In summary they say, my manual penalty was revoked by Google after I spent the time cleaning up my mistakes but days, months, and even years later, my rankings, traffic and thus sales have not improved at all.

Often, I'll see people get all excited after Google removes a manual action within Google Webmaster Tools, only to see that as false hope.

In early September, I talked about this in a poll I ran asking Does A Manual Action Removal Impact Google Rankings? We have almost two-hundred responses and the sad results are in.

53% said their rankings never improved, even after a year. 12% said they saw a ranking improvement within days, 14% said within a month, 8% said within 3 months, 7% within 6 months and 7% within a year. But 53% said never.

I didn't ask if they saw a full recovery. If I did, I suspect that 53% number to jump to 90% or higher.

Often, when it is a link penalty, the removal of the penalty doesn't help much. Why? Because those links that once counted, no longer do and thus the rankings will not return until you garner new, quality links.

Google Closing Authorship Project?

AJ Kohn, someone who focuses more on authorship and rich snippets than most SEOs I know, wrote a story named Authorship Is Dead, Long Live Authorship.

In that story, he describes why he thinks the classic Authorship Project is slowing being closed down. In short, he thinks that because classic authorship is opt in, it isn't easy to scale at the size Google needs. So Google uses other methods to extract authorship/rich snippet like data from sources to show the richer data in the search results.

He also notes that Othar Hansson, who worked in the authorship side of search has left to work on Android in the past six months.

AJ wrote:

Authorship then becomes about Google's ability to extract entities from documents, matching those entities to a corpus that contains descriptors of that entity (i.e. – social profiles, official page(s), subjects) and then measuring the activity around that entity....

...The presence of Authorship markup might increase the confidence level of the match but it will likely play a supporting and refining role instead of the defining role in the process.