It’s been another week in the trenches and while it may have been a little slow out there, we did have some big news with Google Social Search. Question remains, will it really be a game changer or just another vertical? And what the SEO community lacked in activity, we did come across more IR geekiness, which makes this old horse a happy camper. We’ve also got a few interesting patents and more…
I hope this edition finds you well… Enjoy!
Lead Story
When the news broke last week of Google’s Social Search going live, I thought, ‘this has got to be the big story of the week’. At the end of the day I’d say, maybe/maybe not. What we do know is that Google is once more looking to ‘get social’ and there is certainly interest. The part that isn’t as clear, much like Search/Side Wiki before it, is the level of adoption.
As a fella that has been following Google’s personalization/social trail the last few years, it was an interesting development. The burning question is always, “what effect will it have on SEO?”. There were those that said personalization would mean a massive change in what we do, that too, was a bit of an ambitious assertion.
Unless there are wholesale changes to its current implementation, I can’t see this being a game changer. Yes, it will likely present a new vertical with new opportunities, but beyond that it would seem this development will be limited in its effect on us.
Here’s a ton of coverage for you;
My own review!
Google;
Usual Suspects;
- Read Write Web
- Search Engine Land
- The Noisy Channel
- BlogStorm
- Bruce Clay
Now let’s get on with the rest of this week’s search goodiness shall we?
| Quick Nav Links – Buzz Bin – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – SOSG Alerts – Patents – |
Buzz Bin
| Is social media an SEO requirement? – was Virginia’s answer to (friend of trail) James Duthie’s assertion. For the record, since their both friends, I shall fence sit and say it’s not a requirement, but it sure helps. M’kay? |
| Should You Hire An SEO Who Cold Calls You? – from Miriam, via Search Engine Guide, looks at why people might not necessarily want to hire SEOs that cold call. I’m kinda 50/50 as I am sure not just the dregs are using this sales approach. Still, it’s a interesting discussion. |
| When to turn down Business – was somewhat related to the above, on the flip side. At what point to you walk away? (please don’t be desperate my search geeks!) |
| Higher Counts of Malware Taking Over Google Search Results? – as reported from Barry via Search Engine Roundtable. An interesting theory of SERP flux being seen might actually be caused from higher levels of malware hijacks out in the wild. |
| Defining search engine optimization – Lee (Odden) was trying to make sense of one timeless question. And it’s a valiant effort, that’s for sure. It does highlight the many ways and means to search optimization. |
| Google; an update on rich snippets – Seriously, if you aren’t already considering making better use of RDFa/Microformats, then it’s time you did. This post from Google outlines some recent additions to the ‘rich snippets’ platform |
| As if sloppy social media users ain’t bad enough … search engines support traffic theft – Sebastian X is back and this time he’s taking it to URL shorteners. He’s taken up the fight to make sure you’re not abused and that engines take notice. Damn, I really gotta finish up my own logs custom shorty… would help some. Nice stuff as always from Seb!! |
| Google Removes Green Party Web Site From Index Due To Hack – teaches us that you’d better be keeping one eye on the security/stability aspects (I have seen this happen more than a few times). It’s also a good example how Google works WITH sites in these situations. |
| Would you use a Link Building Tool owned by a Link Builder? – was the question posed by John Andrews; and the comments are as interesting as the post. Me? I’m not entirely comfortable and am generally anal about client data… |
| Is Microsoft Bing Finally Figuring Out 301 Redirects? – reports on the boards, according to Barry (via SER) are that Bing is starting to deal with 301’s better. |
| Google Custom Search Turns 3, Rolls Out 3 New Features – sure, the GCSE program doesn’t get much attention from search geeks, but I love building/playing with them. Over at SEJ they reported on some new features rolled out for the 3rd birthday! |
| Any SEO Psychics in the House? – this is an innovative post that takes a recent ‘Crystal Ball’ panel discussion and turns each of the questions into a survey. You can choose your answer from the panellists (or not) and see what others voted on (poll set up). Why not drop in and put your 2c on the future of search? (great idea there gang). |
| Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – SOSG Alerts – Patents – |
Search Geek Central
| Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – SOSG Alerts – Patents – |
Search Patents
| Microsoft
Social Network Powered query refinement and recommendations
Ranking parser for a natural language processing system
|
| Yahoo
Monitoring user interactions with web pages Rating user generated content in search |
/end SOSG session
| Quick Nav Links – Talk of the Town – Geek Central – Social Search – Local SEO – Videos – Tools – SOSG Alerts – Patents – |
‘7 Days of Search and Social’ is a joint effort from Search Engine Journal and the SEO Training Dojo to bring you the latest in SEO and Social Search news. Each week (on Tuesdays) we’ll be posting the highlights of the most recent (SEO Geeks) newsletter here on Search Engine Journal.
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