Google Cracking Down On Bad Advertising Practices, Over 350 Million Ads Removed
Google released a report on their AdWords blog today detailing just how vehemently they are cracking down on “bad actors” who are abusing the online...
About
Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, Matt specializes in gathering details, checking facts, and making complex subjects easy to understand. In addition to writing articles, Matt oversees strategy development for SEJ’s news department.
Articles
Facebook Introduces Trending Topics, Here’s How They Differ From Twitter’s
Facebook recently introduced a new feature to the desktop version of their site that’s a lot like Twitter’s trending topics. Simply called “Trending”, it’s a...
Keyword Rich Domain Names Improving Search Rankings is a Myth, According to Bing
Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager of Bing, claims it’s a myth that keyword rich domain names improve search engine rankings in a post published yesterday on...
Google Releases Official Google Publisher Plugin For WordPress
Announced this morning on their Webmaster Central blog, Google has released an official Google Publisher Plugin for WordPress. While still in the beta stage, this...
Google Image Search Now Lets You Find Images By Usage Rights
Google Image Search now lets you easily find images based on their usage rights. This option has been available for a few years, but it...
Google Acquires Nest Labs For $3.2 Billion in Cash
Google made its second largest acquisition in company history today with the purchase of Nest Labs, makers of smart thermostats and smart smoke alarms, for...
Buffer Adds Google Analytics Integration and More to ‘Buffer For Business’ Plans
Buffer, a wildly successful social media scheduling platform, recently launched some powerful new features to their fledgling Buffer For Business plan. Buffer For Business is a...
Matt Cutts Explains How To Deal With Minor Duplicate Content Issues
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a question about duplicate content in his latest webmaster help video where a user writes in to...
Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone Launches Jelly, A Social Q&A Search Engine
Twitter Co-Founder, Biz Stone, recently launched his super-secret project Jelly, available worldwide on Android and iOS as of yesterday. Jelly is “kinda like using a...
Pinterest Acquires VisualGraph, Looks To Improve Visual Search Capabilities
In an effort to make much needed upgrades to its visual search capabilities, Pinterest recently acquired two-man startup VisualGraph. Founder Kevin Jing previously worked on Google’s visual...
Rap Genius Back On First Page Of Google After 10-Day Penalty
After being outed for unnatural link scheme, lyrics site Rap Genius was hit with a manual penalty by Google that buried their pages deep into...
Google Hits Rap Genius With A Spam Penalty Resulting in 80% Traffic Loss
Lyrics site Rap Genius was penalized by Google just before Christmas after being outed for a black-hat link building scheme. Rap Genius was looking for...
Google Has Reduced Authorship Rich Snippets By 15 Percent
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, stated months ago Google Authorship rich snippets would soon see a 15 percent reduction. We reported on this...
Google Launches Tool For Easy URL Removal On Third-Party Sites
As content on the Internet gets modified or sometimes removed altogether, Google wants to help users by providing a tool to have search results updated...
Facebook Begins Testing Auto-Playing News Feed Video Ads
Facebook has announced they will begin testing auto-playing News Feed video ads for a limited number of accounts starting this week. Facebook has been refining their...
Matt Cutts Explains How Duplicate Content Affects Rankings
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a question about duplicate content in his latest video where a user writes in to ask: How does Google...
Google Acquires Military Robot-Maker Boston Dynamics
Google confirmed to the New York Times late last week they have acquired military robot-maker, Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics is know for producing military-grade robots...
Moz CEO Rand Fishkin to Swap Roles with COO Sarah Bird
Moz co-founder, Rand Fishkin, went public today on his blog with his decision to step down as CEO. Fishkin will be switching roles with current COO,...
Bing Expands Their Knowledge Repository With More Interactive Content
Bing made an announcement today about an expansion to their knowledge repository, called Satori. They have added a few new features to enhance the search...
Matt Cutts Answers Whether Guest Blogging Will Be Considered Spam In The Future
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a question about guest blogging in his latest video where a user writes in to ask: I predict that...
Photos from #SEJMeetup in San Francisco Last Week
Thanks to everyone who attended Search Engine Journal’s first networking meetup last week at the Creamery in San Francisco! #SEJMeetup will be a regular series of...
Majestic SEO Launches Live Ranking Factors In Search Explorer
This past October, Majestic SEO launched a new search tool called Search Explorer, which is a search engine that allows you to find sites based...
Target Tests An Online Store Powered By Pinterest, Called The ‘Awesome Shop’
Retailer Target is taking a new approach to e-commerce with the launch of an online storefront powered by Pinterest recommendations. Target’s “Awesome Shop” is refreshed...
Turn Google+ Content Into Ads On Google Display Network With New +Post Ads
In their first attempt to monetize Google+, Google made an announcement today about the introduction of +Post ads. These new ad units allow users to...
Google Is Testing Embedded Images In Search Results Snippets
SEJ reader Samuel Edwards, from Tenthwave Digital, gave us a heads up about something he recently spotted while doing a Google search. Google appears to be...
Google Toolbar PageRank Has Been Updated, First Update In Over 10 Months
Just a couple months ago Matt Cutts said he would be surprised to see an update to Google Toolbar PageRank by the end of this...
Twitter Announces Ad Retargeting Feature Called ‘Tailored Audiences’
In an announcement made on their blog yesterday, Twitter is releasing a new product for their advertisers called “tailored audiences.” After testing tailored audiences for...
Matt Cutts: Not A Good Practice To Create Articles By Combining Content From Other Sites
Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a question about content in his latest video where a user writes in to ask: Can a site still...
Smartphone Specific Crawl Errors Now Reported In Google Webmaster Tools
In an announcement made this morning on the official Google Webmaster Central Blog, starting today Google Webmaster Tools will now help you identify pages on your...
Google Promises More Accurate Results With New Google Trends Topic Reports
An announcement was made on the official Google Search blog today about a new addition to Google Trends being rolled out that promises to deliver more...