Below we have compiled a list of SEO articles we have been reading this week from across the web.
Google, Penalties & the Disavow Links Tool: The Big Game Theory
Simon Penson asks the question: are we playing Google’s continual update, penalty, Disavow game? This an interesting point of view, certainly one you should consider before jumping into disavowing your links. Simon’s article is based around the theory that Google has created a game where they continually roll out penalizing updates to force site owners into their “game.”
How Social Signals Influence SEO: Five Things You Need To Know
Article on Econsultancy by Fi Dunphy exploring the current relationship between social signals and search rankings. This is a topic which is influencing the mission of this very blog. One section of particular interest is “How important are authorship signals?”
Google Updates The Google Authorship Patent
A lot of SEO news this week was focussed on the update to Google’s Authorship Patent and the implications on the future SEO and AuthorRank. Brian Ussery originally dissected the patent on Google+ to discover the differences between this new updated one and the original one. Brian explains the notable differences :
- Reputation score is based at least in part on reviews of the online content item that have been provided by one or more authors
- Ranking for the author based at least in part on the reputation score for the author and reputation scores of one or more authors who provided the reviews
- Ranking is weighted according to a status level of the one or more authors who provided the reviews.
The patent is named Authentication of a Contributor of Online Content # 20120265755. Watch out for future analysis of the implications for SEO in future posts.
The Time For Content Marketing Is Now
Tom Critchlow explores how we can bridge the gap between the content marketing and SEO industries. This is a topic myself, Stu and Lee have been discussing over the previous weeks as we seek to create strategies driven by remarkable content which will drive traffic and boost rankings. Tom presents a list of actionable insights from the fusion of SEO and content marketing:
- Being remarkable produces outsized rewards
- Hire a chief content officer
- Invest in page types – every page is a landing page, something which correlates with the awareness ladder approach to targeting long tail traffic
- SEOs are perfectly placed to engage in content marketing
Matt Cutts: Real Googlers Read Your Reconsideration Requests
Matt Cutts posted a video this week responding to a question posted in the Webmaster Help Forum asking if a real human reads the reconsideration requests. The answer, somewhat suprinsingly, is yes – Google reads and responds to virtually all reconsideration requests submitted by Webmasters.
Disavow Tool Beta Test Recovery Laid Bare!
Alex Graves claims to have had access to the Disavow Tool in beta earlier this year following an ‘Unnatural Links’ penalty on a client’s site. Once disavowed the site took a number of weeks before rankings climbed. A Penguin update kickstarted the recovery and every since the site has continued to see rankings improve across a number of keywords. We would still advise caution before deploying the Disavow Tool.
That is what we have been talking about this week, what have you been talking about?
