The Google ‘Over-Optimisation Penalty’ has still so far to be confirmed by Google themselves, but that hasn’t stopped the SEO blogosphere from buzzing with speculation about what will be targeted, whose rankings will suffer and some people even reporting that it might be here already. Certainly there are examples out there of some larger sites dropping twenty or more places overnight.

Amid all the conjecture, there are a few recurring themes. Below, we’ve compiled some of the salient points and how to avoid the pitfalls of ‘over-optimisation’.

Pages Titles

The main things Google might look unfavourably on with page titles are; repeated keywords and repetitious use of synonyms that don’t add anything in the way of understanding.

Keep things simple and clear. Try to include keyword search terms that describe the page overall and the products it features.

Backlinks

Backlinks are a strong indicator to search engines of a site’s relative worth. This knowledge has lead to widespread exploitation, namely; comment spamming, blog networks and reciprocal linking.

Link-building can be a laborious process, there are no quick fixes but links from quality sites can help increase traffic and authority. Its importance should not be underestimated.

Footers

Link-heavy footers were once a neat method of fooling search engines without impacting too much on a site’s appearance. Placing large numbers of links at the bottom of a page was a way to tell Google that it was important and worth looking at.

Use anchor-text links in the body of the onpage text where they enhance the user experience of the site.

Internal Links

Exact-match anchor text repeatedly linking to the same pages on a site might have once helped spread a site’s authority but, when overused, this is little more than extra clutter.

Instead of focusing on sheer volume of internal links; try to include logical, useful links where they are appropriate. Also, change the anchor text to avoid using the same keyword phrases over and over again as repeated uses will not bring extra value.

Keyword Stuffing

Blocks of text written with the sole purpose of housing a few-dozen mentions of a particular keyword or keywords do not add to a site’s value.

Any information on-page should be there for humans, rather than search engines. As such, it should be useful, relevant and well written.

Bearing these things in mind will not only help your site to avoid being penalised by Google, it will also improve the experience for the user, which should always be the priority of SEO!

Google has announced some exciting new changes it will be bringing in for ‘phrase’ and ‘exact’ match keywords.

What does this Mean?

Starting in mid-May, the new matching behaviour will extend ‘phrase’ and ‘exact’ match keywords to recognize plurals, misspellings, accents and abbreviations in an attempt to focus more on what the user is searching for. Even when searching for the same thing, individuals will more often than not use different wording, spellings and terminology. Google aims to focus on what the user is searching for, taking more variations into account to create a better user experience.

Benefits

The early testing conducted by Google has found that the new matching behaviour can increase the number of clicks in a campaign by as much as 3%. Whilst there is still the option to retain the old matching behaviour settings, the new system has had positive feedback so far and looks set to improve clicks across many campaigns.

One important thing to note is that this is optional, so should you wish to stick with the original settings you’ll still have that option.

Source: Adwords

It looks as though it will mean similar tools such as DropBox will struggle to compete.

Find out more here >>

The following infographic provides some really interesting statistics for the worlds largest social networks including demographic breakdowns, useful data and tips.

Infographic published on Mashable

For help with any social media marketing services including utilising the platforms listed in the infographic, please contact us.

For the last couple of years on the 17th March Google has had a St Patrick’s themed Doodle on their site and 2012 was no different!

So we’ve gathered a selection of the Doodles from 2007 to the latest addition to the collection. Here at the office, we can’t wait to see what they do next year!

To take a look at the older St Patrick’s Google Doodles you can read the Mashable Post Here > >

Source: Mashable

“Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal. “

Simply put, this update means that Google will now display results that are local to the searcher, even when the searched for term is broad and doesn’t specify a location. This is done by detecting where the searcher is based and mixing results from local companies/organisations with broad results that would normally rank for the term.

Google will supposedly only do this when they detect that a search has ‘local intent’, although they seem to be applying it to some fairly broad searches where you wouldn’t necessairly be looking for a local company. Take the below screenshot of a search for ‘SEO‘ as an example:

Google Venice update being applied to broad search terms

Whether Google will update this algorithm change in the future so that it applies to a smaller selection of terms is unclear, but for the time being, expect to see more local results on your results pages.

With this in mind we’ve got some helpful tips and hints for searching using Google.

We’ll start with some of the simpler but handy tricks:

And a few of the slightly more obscure but equally useful tricks for searching with Google!

Tracking a Package

Source: Mashable, StatCounter

Google is well known for having a revolutionary ‘fun office’ for their employees. In a surprising move, Google have posted several pictures from the inside of the Googleplex, showing some of the innovative workplaces they have available. Well if you’re going to have a meeting, why not have it in a pink tent?

Plus they have their own mini-golf course!

For more pictures from inside the Google Offices click here>>

Source – Mashable

Google, who are well known for their Google Doodles and Eater Eggs related to the holidays weren’t outdone today with the equation below.

sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

Seems like a very random algebraic equation doesn’t it?

Well try typing this equation into Google for a special Valentine’s Day Easter Egg!

Whilst you’re on Google why not try ‘askew‘ and ‘do a barrel roll‘ too?

Unsurprisingly Twitter has seen a huge number of Valentine’s Day related tweets. Though one anti-Valentine’s Day trend simply called ‘Tomorrow is Tuesday’ has been making the rounds on the site there are still a lot of positive Valentine’s Day related tweets.

There is a definite split when it comes to Valentine’s Day related tweets, particularly the positive ones!

For the full article on Google Easter Eggs click here > >

For the full article on Valentine’s Day Twitter Trends click here > >

Source  – Mashable

Source: Google